Sweater Who Wears

Knit me high over the kiln of your chest. With trims of gold and splayed in blue, I vest myself as just a veil over the fiery heart you store inside. As storms do pass and winters tarnish, I will sit within my post and hold to you my warmest smile. For as dawn breaks in the sky, or dusk rolls through the bitter hills, you will find me there, sewn and shorn with complacence and personality. I will dress you in prisms of colors galore, and decorate you with the badges of my want for your affection.

Perhaps there will come a time when you feel I am too warm, where you feel I am too thick of fabric and such, that you may decide where rises a sunny day, “It is time to undress and wash the dirt beneath me.” But I say you, my friend and my soul in part, to see me not as worn but rather as flesh, and maybe even as sibling to the sweat you so wish to displace from your body. I am not such that I could say no to you, of course, but understand that the warmth I breathe is that which seeps into your pores and welcomes slumber into the bed.

I do not want you to feel unkempt, or even uncleansed, but I want you to comprehend the gift of my adornment. Maybe it is true that it is me who wears you, and plays the part of bone and skin, of one who stands among the kinsmen of his fellow. For I feel a deep sense of loathing for those whose blood already runs hot, while mine simmers at the lukest of warms.

And it’s quite possibly so that I am jealous of you who does not shed lint, and does not lose his threads, and is warm no matter how cold it is. Yet, I will love you and wear you all the same, and I will mark across your chest my name, and scream with joy as you do your day, knowing that this sweater was not ashamed of being the wearer and not the clothing.

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