Day 18: Pieces of an Object

When glass falls.

It shatters.

The millions of shards throw themselves all around with its sharp and jagged edges, designating its own lines of protection. And people always tell you not to touch that broken glass!

And you think to yourself, "I won't cut myself. I've got this."

Even then,

when we pick up the big pieces anyway, we know not to squeeze them.

Not to push on these jagged edges.

Not to cross those lines.

What happens when everyone Starts listening and Stops picking up those broken pieces?

What happens when I'm left there shattered into a million pieces,

and I'm just swept up carelessly & taken straight to the trash...

If no one takes me to the craft table and tries to glue me back together.

I guess once you're too broken,

there's no purpose in trying to fix you.

Left so long that these sharp edges become dull,

and yet no one dares to touch them. I don't want to tattoo scares of regret, pity, or sorrow.

I don't want to use their blood and tears as the adhesive that puts me back together.

Neither do I want to be stepped on and ignored...

Disintegrating into sand.

But then again,

I'm in the process.

When you're the hands willing to get cut

as you piece together those shards of someone else

it hurts to know that they'd sweep you under the rug.

"Out of sight, out of mind."

Isn't that what They say?

What if someone takes the time to look at those pieces

and finds out that I was an empty beer bottle?

Drunk off of the lies that are still hanging from the lips that have touched to take a drink.

Taking gulps.

Not sips.

Not taking the time to appreciate my essence.

What I really am.

Drinking just to blind thoughts of a busy day.

But

at the Very end of it,

they'd have preferred a nice glass of wine.

A relaxing sensation to the mind...

from a delicately shaped and beautifully crafted glass that could easily be broken,

but everyone knows to take their time.

Always so.

Very.

Careful.

Lifting their pinkies in the air as a white flag of submission to her grace.

I'm the bottle that catches drunken laughter and distraught tears.

They're the glasses that catch quality - something a little like love.

But I can only guess.

I'd never actually know.

I could scratch the paper of my notebooks for hours.

For-

ever.

But no one cares to piece together the words on broken glass.

So go ahead.

And throw it all away.

#poetry #february #challenge #broken