Stitch by Stitch, My Mother Said

by gloamish

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 1401

Rarity is her mother's daughter. Now she's older than her mother ever was.

A poem about Rarity's upbringing, craft, and love.

contains copious comphet and allusions to alcoholism
an entry for the pony poetry contest

Published 2024-10-16 11:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-10-16 11:10:00 UTC

Thread by Thread

Stitch by stitch, my mother said
A lady mustn't lose her head.
Aim to someday be someone
And hem it lest it come undone.

High fashion and haute couture,
This gown for pomp, that for allure,
Mother led me through it all
And snared me in its lifelong thrall.

Immerse myself in history
Eyes devour subtleties
On every mare I meet I see
A new garment waiting to be

"Settle down," my mother said
When passion flushed my colors red
"Don't be swept up in the art and
Forget why it was you started."

She told me of a perfect world:
Mares who waltz in lacebound swirls
Each follows their charming prince
I've searched for mine ever since.

She taught me how it all revolved
Around the courtship dance of old:
There's a match for every pony
You'll be whole in matrimony.

When I asked, "What happens after?"
All I got from her was laughter.

I never could explain the feeling
I had when I saw stallions kneeling
Knowing that mare would be I
I know now: I was terrified.

Mother says she's going home.
Ponyville is all I've known
But now she's given me a chance:
I could follow her to Prance.

I have a choice of who I'll be:
Provincial or royalty.
All she's told me: dinner parties,
Table d'hôte and à la carte.

I'm still a filly after all.
Was all my fire just folderol?
Mother says she'll meet me there
When my dresses pay the fare

I find that life is rarely fair.

The shipping company sends
The details of mother's end
Packaged in an envelope:
A storm too strong for any hope.

I have nightmares of the ocean for two weeks.
Hondo tells me I've been crying in my sleep.
I move into her empty atelier.
I find a kind of peace there.

Cookie Crumbles moves into my foalhood home ten moons later and I close the book on family for a decade.

The light returns, it always does.
It's kind of like a mother's love.
She's still here in the Boutique
Honing her daughter's technique.

So carry on like work's a ghost
And I: its unwilling host;
Commissions keep rolling in
There's no time to be maudlin.

I learn what stallions adore:
Where lace gives way to metaphor
How low skirts hang past the fetlocks
How high socks sit upon the hocks.

Then: a party invitation!
From the summit of our nation!
It's neither Galloping nor Grand,
But it's got nobles and a band.

And more follow, in a tizzy,
All the waltzes make me dizzy.
This is what it's all been for,
Dinner with this 'charming' boor—

Settle down, Rarity. Mustn't spurn nobility.
Find your prince, marry young, become what you're meant to be.
Lift your hopes, close your eyes, think of Prance.

I have never been to Prance.
He doesn't even write me back.

Try again, harder now, ladies don't wear furrowed brows,
Mares are pretty, gorgeous, beauty—
Stallions are handsome.

How can I become a mare
Without mother to guide me there?

Find a sort of rhythm in
Successes and rejections
While artistically I soar
Socially I'm through the floor.

She finds me buried in my work.

Glory, isn't she a mess?
Protégé of the Princess
Somehow lacking etiquette
A makeover is requisite.

I learn why you shy away:
You toil for every scrap of praise.
But though you work so many wonders,
You're more than what you are for others.

Nopony's told you how pretty—
Settle down, Rarity.
Of course you see what she cannot.
It's your job.

So I meet the other five
We've weaved through each other's lives
Now the threads have been pulled taut
We're all tighter than a knot

Stay a little out of reach.
Never join them at the beach.

The Gala! Grand and galloping!
Dream of veils and wedding rings.
If Prince Charming isn't here,
Then I'll just marry my career!

Stare through a donut's empty hole
And wonder how it's seen as whole.

Stitch and stitch and stitch and stitch
And bitch and whine and moan and bitch
And even still you cannot learn
You never get what you don't earn.

Don't see friends, work through midnight
Throw that out, it isn't right
Laziness is unbecoming
You can still be good for something.

"Whisky's just as good as thread,"
Something else my mother said.
I think I get now what she meant.
Lest it come undone. Hah.

Swear off alcohol forever.

Luckily, Twilight's there,
Holding back my uncoiffed hair,
Whispering "you'll be okay,"
Things mother would never say.

A lifetime holding yourself together leaves you unprepared to fall apart.

Take it slow, do what you can,
Primrose, auburn, azure, tan.
Gift some dresses to some friends,
Rose, coral, persimmon.

Heliotrope, burgundy.
Lilac, mauve, mulberry.
Lavender, wisteria,
Orchid, amethyst, and her.

It's fine to have a slight obsession,
Ladder-climbing's my profession!
If only she could see me now:
A Princess wears my ballroom gowns.

But all the adulation
From the finest of the nation
Doesn't give me satiation
Like the beauty of her smile.

So here I am with company
Of breeding and nobility
Sipping sparkling apple juice
And bored out of my mind.

I search for foalish fantasies
That my mother sold to me
But her advice sounds different
When it's a stallion giving it.

Refuse to give him what he desires.
Smile less and take more clients.

And so Twilight is going home.
How could she leave me here alone?
My joy for her should be unfettered
Why does it bring to mind that letter?

Stitch
By stitch
By stitch.
Itch
And itch
And itch.

Carousels across the country,
Selling fashions grand and sundry.
'Happily ever after'
Racks me with bitter laughter.

Admit it one day to the mirror
How could it be any clearer?
There is no prince out there for me.
My mother's dead as dead can be.

Canterlot repeats, a rhyme
Galas aren't the jewel this time
Adorning my dreams every night
All my thoughts are of Twilight.

She still has that giggle-snort
That turned humor into a sport
Of chasing her to breathlessness...
And I thought that was friendliness.

Joy curdles to misery;
She'd have to stoop to kiss me.
What could a Princess ever see
In one who's going gray?

Mother, I still know the cure
For a heart that has endured
Emptiness and disappointment:
Labor was her favored ointment.

Stitch by stitch and follow through and every day I think of you and fashion lines and bright interns she isn't mine and I'm not hers and yarn and thread and yearn and fret and Mother still inside my head a deep ocean inside my heart so hem it or you'll fall apart—

I often go to Canterlot
(Since all the couture there is haute.)
There is a guest room in the castle
Twilight says that it's no hassle.

She escorts me to functions,
I join her at her luncheons.
When she does her astral duties,
I can't help but talk of beauty.

She begs me, "Stay a little longer,"
Were I still young, I would be stronger
Enough to not return her plea:
"How long will you be having me?"

"Forever."

Stitch by stitch, I always say.
What else is there but day by day?
I can only be myself
I'm glad I'm not somepony else.

The beach is warm this time of year.
Beneath me: sand and froth and fear
Beside me stands a patient lover
Twilight, darling, meet my mother.

Author's Note

comphet rarity my beloved... my personal equestria doesn't have the heteronormative pressure required to actually form her but she's canon to me anyways. this one's also got my other weird headcanon: rarity's birth mother, belle. you just cannot convince me rarity turned out like that with solely hondo whatever and cookie crumbles as influence.

poetry is hard. AABB instead of ABAB wasn't a smart choice! rhyming and meter is like swimming in your clothes: it sounds like such a fun idea to start with, but then it soaks through and starts dragging you down, and even when you get out of the water you're soaked with the embarrassment of rhyming dictionaries and monosyllabic -ee words. if i write more pony poetry, it'll be freeform so i can focus more on imagery!