I used to think touching something as beautiful as a cobweb would be as painful as getting a splinter.

I used to think Mom and Dad holding hands was like weaving a cobweb. So they never did.

I used to think loving something too much would cause it pain, would unravel the threads of cobwebs, tear them like the seams of my childhood stuffed animal that still has one eye.

I used to think my reflection was a lie, and reflections of cobwebs couldn't exist because my reflection was of something painful: the wrong facial structure, the wrong chest, the wrong fingertips. So I never held my own hand.

I used to think I could weave myself into another gender if I made myself pretty enough—pretty and pain canceling out in the mirror. So I never wove my parents' hands together in prayer for a son.

When I got my first splinter, it wasn't painful; it was wonder, wonder at how easily it'd slipped under my skin without notice, wonder at how hard it was to go about prying it out, wonder at how I was trying to pry my reflection of myself out of myself. Wonder at the cobwebs lingering between the crevices of my fingers. So I pulled the cobwebs out instead of the splinter. So it didn't hurt.

It didn't.