My Velcro-baby

Rosaleen Lynch

I have a velcro-baby, her skin loops like mine, born from a womb of hooks, unable to keep others as secure as the fastenings on her baby shoes, her caesarean cut the hook and loop, to peel her out of me, but a burdock burr won’t stick to another burr, or a chestnut to another and she won’t sleep on my chest like her father’s, or latch onto my breast like books show every other mother’s breast, we’re both loops, can’t bond, we’re too alike, her father says when she turns teen and runs rings round me, and we circle the same ground, spiral until he connects us again, the hook to our loops, and when the clock-hand spins its wheel of fortune, taking him in its embrace, we turn in on ourselves in cycles of pain and self-help books, closed-off until I cut through my loops to make hooks.


This story won First Prize in the Online Flash Fest Micro Competition.

About the author: Rosaleen Lynch, an Irish community worker and writer in the East End of London with words in lots of lovely places and can be found on Twitter @quotes_52 and 52Quotes.blogspot.com