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JR Potts Oct 2016
I hate to be the bearer of bad news baby
but I was broken a long time ago.
I had hoped
when I showed you that video
on kintsugi, the Japanese art
of repairing broken pottery
with lacquer and powered gold
that you would've seen our history
was not meant to be hidden,
that our imperfections,
the cracks in our ceramics
were meant to be illuminated
with gold
Mollie Grant Apr 2016
I want to know
what it feels like
for reconciliation
to wash over
my fault lines.
Take my cracks
and paint them
with gold.
Let me glimmer,
                   gleam,
                           and glow
redemption.
Illuminate my mistakes
and let my skeleton
frame out a museum
of triumph
zackery jennings Feb 2016
Bonds formed bring about a great happiness never known and always unique then strife battles hard fought anger grow bond restricting cracking breaking held together by only the most fragile strand... Then like the art of kintsugi we fill the cracks with golden memories growing through the brutality of battle we learn about one another and ourselves filled to the brim with regret for our foolishness we last down the Axe working together to fix this fragile crack filling it ever so carefully with more and more golden memories stronger memories bond renewed stronger  and with a devastating beauty  unbeknownst to us the uniques that made it beautiful made it stronger than we thought possible forever we will remember our beautiful scar
I didn't get the girl but I didn't loose a valued and amazing friend
Marlo Cabrera May 2016
Eto ako ngayon,
nakahiga kama ko
isipan ay walang laman kun’di ikaw.
nababaliw sa bawat senaryo
na kasama ka.
Ilang beses ko na naisip
at na plano ang gagawin
sa oras na dumating ang
panahon na kailangan gumawa ng desisyon
kung pagpapatuloy ba natin
ang ating pagsasama.
at ilang beses ko na ding
nasagot ang sarili na
oo.

Kase wala lang naman akong
hihilingin kung’di ikaw
na nag papatibok ng puso ko.

Ang taong pumupulot sa mga basag kong piraso,
at binubuo ako, gamit ang ginto.
Kase ang mga hapon ay may sining
na kapag ang isang bagay ay nabasag
ang ginagawa nila dito ay
ginagamit ang ginto bilang pang digit.
Para sa kanila,
ang bagay na iyon ay mas maganda at kabighabighani
kesa nung eto ay hindi pa nababasag.

Ikaw ang ginto
na bumubuo
sa mga basag kong piraso.

Salamat.

Mahal kita.
Kintsugi = The Japanese art of repairing with gold.
Luzita Pomé Nov 2018
You used to tell me that beautiful things come from pain and adversity.
Like motherhood, unconditional love, and true stories.
As I stood in the middle of a room painted white,
Staring at the remains of rolling hills burned to black,
I saw you staring back at me.

Burnt fields like black panther fur
Shining against your bones
Velvet black
You’ve changed
And changed and changed
Yet your love still remains
Burnt fields like black panther fur
Whiskers are the needles on a compass
Always pointing to the azure sky
You used to sing when I cried
Rolling your r’s over rrolling hills
A haunting melody startling black birds into the night
Feathered constellations against a sliver moon
And lips pressed to my salty cheeks

You told me that your favorite skin tone was chocolate,
As you laid out in the sun hoping to melt. “A quarter black” is what you say when you want to feel proud,
Even as you tell me stories of how your mother was called negrita,
The girl who stood too dark amongst the crowd.

Burnt fields like black panther fur
Black like the broken wings of mothers before you
Who had hands with scars from cotton seeds
And blue veins like uprooted trees
Stretching all the way to their tired knees
Burnt fields like black panther fur
You criticize your aging beauty
Speaking in envy of the color gold
Like you are a broken bowl in need of kintsugi
Yet silver snakes still slither
Over the pebbled river beds of your black curls
Dripping down the small of your back
Until they reach the base of your ivory spine
Burnt fields like black panther fur
You criticize your aging beauty
Because you never thought
Cocoa lips and sun spots painted on sculpted clay that never cracks
Could ever look as stunning as it does on you

You told me that it is better to speak my truth then tell pretty lies.
So I told you mine and you cried,
And cried and cried.
But look where we are now,
Standing beside each other with the same eyes,
Just different reflections.

Burnt fields like black panther fur
Tongue like a sword set ablaze
Tempered in pools of milk and honey
Blood red sun grazing the tops of your eyelids
Still reminiscent of those in old photographs
Where you saw the little girl you search for in me
Burnt fields like black panther fur
I am sorry I made you cry
But even when our backs are turned
We are still
Black birds singing in the dead of night
Free
Thank you mama for my broken wings.
Inspired by a photograph of a burnt field that I saw in an art gallery. For my mom.
Sidharth Suraj Feb 2021
Broken into a million pieces,
living in this fear to break into a million more,
Making sure to tread with caution,
making sure I don't scream when I step on the thorns,
making sure I couldn't recall the last time I felt pain and mourned.
But someone felt my void inside,
Someone taught me there are no mistakes that cannot be healed
She taught me “healing exists to connect and not to perfect beings”.

I have found someone that makes me adore these fragments in me.
She is an alchemist working with gold,
healing those imperfections,
not hiding them in deep,
shaping them with trust,
molding them to fit back in,
trying to restore me with her palms,
blessing her magic on me
with that sacred art of Kintsugi.

Now the healed scars are in the shape of roses and daffodils,
now the vulnerabilities look gorgeous in me.
Her love is bridging my broken pieces,
now those lost and empty pieces are looking vivid.
Kissing those palms which made me believe,
breathing under her serenity,
now I felt peace in my reality.

Every imperfection seems unique to me.
Fragility, strength, and beauty,
now seem almost synonymous to one another.
To the one who rooted this resilience in me,
you mean the world to me.
Imperfections healed in Love
Anonymous May 2014
I am a tea cup delicate and intricate.
There are beautiful patterns covering my surface,
but if you look closer you'll see the cracks.
Every time you fill me up just to leave me empty again,
those cracks grow.
They grow and they grow and they grow,
and eventually they grow so big that I am no longer a cup.
I am just pieces of a cup, chipped and broken.
And you, having left me like this, having caused my utter and complete destruction, will not see the value in my remains.

But someone will, and when they do they'll help piece me back together understanding that the gold they use to mend my wounds only adds to my beauty.
Deeee Apr 2017
I was broken.

Shattered remains of what I used to be.
Random misaligned pieces, sprawled all over the floor, crushed more by whomever would walk over them.

And then you came.
And you saw.
Each piece you knew was a part of something greater.
"Something beautiful," you said.

You helped me pick up the pieces, ignoring the cuts on your hands.
You kept me safe, so noone else would hurt me.
You found a broken girl, but you saw *Kintsugi.
Diána Bósa Sep 2020
You said, that I have a heart of gold.
I just smiled because I know that
since the dawn of our time
you have broken it so many times;
shattered it into oodles of pieces
which I tried to repair - time after time,
then it could no longer resemble its true self.
It became something different,
some kind of kintsugi artifact,
something golden, yet something hard:
completely useless for its predestination.
jessica obrien Sep 2021
birds alight upon
sutures of a licked-thin night—
tree branch at sunrise.
haikuesday
Elyas Nakos Apr 2017
I am afraid like everybody else.
Afraid of life, to be swallowed into an ocean of oblivion.
Sometimes I imagine my own dreams fall down like a fig from a tree just to
land on the ground to rot.
What’s the solution hugging a bottle. Probably not, but still
better then hugging nobody right?
I am not even an addict I just romanticize about the idea of being one.
I like the idea of fighting back into life, to stand up from
the ground to  grow stronger and bigger
. I want my life to be a metaphor for Kintsugi.
I want to shatter myself into a thousand pieces like a bowl.
Put them all back together, so that the new bowl will be even more beautiful than
the original one.

Kitt Dec 2018
gratefulness is the gold fillings
in your cracked porcelain skin
recognition of your brokenness--
not the brokenness itself--
is the beauty in imperfection.

white ripples across your surface become
golden seams. the tectonic design is
a topographical map of scars and stitches;
the adherence of
traits that don't otherwise connect.

"you are beautiful," he tells you as
he kisses each mark softly,
his lips tracing a winding path through
your gardens.

it is not his words that make it so
but they settle just the same
reminding you that it’s not the cracks
that make you glitter
but the gold with which you fill them—
forgiveness
grace
and love.
AuburnRose Jan 2016
You have carved yourself beautifully.
You are the clay touched by tired cracked hands,
Molded by your own experiences.

You are one with water as your sweat illuminates
your proud face;
as you weep tears for those you love,
or those you want to love.

You are loved by the sun
As your skin is kissed by the pigment goddess,
and you are forming into who you are.

Your skin is etched with markings,
Reminding those of your journey,
Your passion,
Your love.

You are fragile, you have cracks love,
But you fills your cracks with gold
And broken is better than new.
Kintsugi.
To my friend Yvette

Kintsugi is a Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, silver, etc. Essentially, broken is beautiful.
Lianette Reyes Jul 2014
Let me be your Isis
I'll scavenge the land for the pieces of you they've stolen
and fit each and every piece back together with delicate fingers
Your kintsugi astounds me, each and every break so beautiful
It is not my reflection I admire as my eyes dwell along and ride
the golden rivers you try and keep from me
Let me be your Isis
let me see the melancholy spill from your eyes
the snap of your spirit when my words are like sin
I am not perfect, and I will drown in my folly like gin
down my father's throat
my father does not know how to swim.
But your pain is like a gasp of breath sometimes
when it reminds me that you are of the firmest birch tree
your bark does not bend to just any wind
and the symphony of susurrus that accompanies the midnight
breeze, escaping the ivory lamina of your leaves, each note
leaping off of every blade like a dancer,
are NOT composed by just any sultry sylph
Let me be your Isis
Be my Osiris, a masterpiece
Steve Page Nov 2018
my finger traced the cracks and brokenness,
found the gaps and incompleteness,
while you carefully took each jagged piece
and added a golden vein of grace
to mark the restoration,
creating a celebration
within a divine appreciation
of this, a broken reflection
of my origin,
starting and ending with you
Kintsugi is a beautiful thing.  Especially when completed on a broken heart.
Ayura Dec 2013
Bind the pieces with sun dipped silk
fill the cracks of my heart
with gold
until the veins branch like broken trees
with sturdy roots

They will need to dig in deep
for there is
wind in my body.

the birds fly away from the storm
and sing

  don't forget
you have to fight just as hard to let go
as you do
     to hold on
Our inner demons hide behind
The cracks that face forward
Seasoned by dungeons and darkness
They fill in the holes and cover up the crevices

Soon, my soul will be completely shattered
As your powerful glare becomes the last water drop
This ocean can take
And when the vessel of emotion breaks, it breaks
A poem inspired by Collin, the artist:
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of melding the areas of breakage of broken pottery with lacquer dusted with powdered precious metals. It is similar to the maki-e technique.
Daniel Magner Dec 2012
I will repair the c r a c k s
in my skin with gold
Broken but full of worth
with a little bit of shine
© Daniel Magner 2012
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold.
ms reluctance Apr 2019
It’s broken, they say –
the modern world lies in ruin.
It’s easy to believe them.

I also believe
broken things can be precious
if looked after lovingly.
NaPoWriMo Day 15
Poetry form: Sedoka
J Jan 2018
She is made
up of broken
bits and pieces,
held together
delicately by
her golden scars.

And that, my friend,
is what made
her beautiful.
wear your scars with pride.
Michael A Duff Nov 2019
Broken is renewed
Honored for its damages
Better than before
I love the idea and crafting of the Japanese custom of Kintsugi, it is the repairing of pottery that has broken with gold. With this custom things broken are preciously repaired with most valuable gold, honoring the items for their repairs and broken pieces rather than discarding them for their flaws. People are to me this way, we should honor them for their broken hearts abuses from the past, respecting their healing and recovery. Because that person is unique in all the world. Even though they may have pushed you away broken your heart or vise versa, you may never know how hard the battle is that they are waging in their mind and soul.
JR McFadden Oct 2014
Sometimes I feel as though my heart has been shattered into so many pieces I can't put it back together.
But I've gathered all those pieces and tried to fit them together.
Slowly I realize that I've lost some of the shards.
Not lost.. I know where they are.
You took them with you.
It hurts, it burns.
But the burn melts the pain Into molten gold,that I use to fill the gaps off my shattered heart.
At first the gold is bold and clearly defined.
But it becomes part of my spirit like its always been there.
What can be done with something so fragile.
Do I Lock it in a chest, hide from the world and build high walls around my treasure.
Guarded by a dragon and lost to legend.

I say no.
this bowl can still
be repaired
even if it
seems broken
irredeemably
even if its pieces
have been trodden
underfoot
further ground down
in an effort
to recover those
scattered fragments
as unlikely as
it may be that
these edges can
be jigsawed together
aligned once more
it could simply be
a case of
embracing the cracks
that might remain
filling them
with something
to be marvelled at
A butterfly flutters
Through the breeze
The wind healing its broken wings
I finally tried this theme after a long time.
By now, most of you will know what this Japanese term means.
Bert Coates Mar 2020
Fractures healed in gold
My minds history on show
The story now told
I wish I could tell you that I will watch you die.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be morbid here, but I heard that in a song once.

Love is watching someone die.  

And I want to tell you that no matter what is happening in your life, I want to be there at your side.  That wherever you go, you’ll find me, like your shadow.
You can stand on the top of the world’s tallest mountain, or be laying in a hospital bed,
and even though I’m scared of heights and needles,

I’ll be there,

next to you,

drinking you in.  

Like your fingers, you can count on me.  Like a calculator, like a child counts his steps in the hallway, you can count on me.  

I’ll be solid when you are soft.  
When you can’t hold yourself together, I’ll be your staples.  
When you feel like you are losing parts of yourself, I’ll find them.  I’ll hand them back to you.  
When you’re breaking, I’ll hold you, and I’ll tell you that even the most beautiful statues have their cracks, and they are all the more beautiful because of them.  
I'll tell you that the Japanese repair broken pottery with liquid gold,

and there is yellow coursing through your veins.

I wish I could whisper “You are beautiful” at every single one of your weakest moments.  

Maybe someday I will.  

Maybe someday you’ll believe me.

When you can’t, I promise I can.
When you won’t, I will.
If you need to leave, I’ll stay.
You will forever be the one thing that I am seeking to complete, even if I don’t quite know who you are yet.
Yours will be the side that I will fit into, like the last piece of a thousand piece puzzle.
I will search for you, until I have found myself.
And when you are laying there, in a room that scares me, in a place full of sounds that I don’t recognize, as you exhale for the last time,
I’ll inhale.

I will finish your last action.

I won’t flinch, or flee.

Because

*love is watching someone die.
I know you now.
Thank you.
Noah Stowe Jan 2017
I was a broken mess
You are the gold
Holding me together
And making me more beautiful.
- Apr 2017
And like those Japanese broken pots repaired with lacquer of gold and silver, you make me feel special

Thank you for finding beauty in my wreckage. Thank you for fixing me.
Ell R Jan 2022
You stare blankly at the ceiling
Unwilling to rise
Everyone has abandoned you
No respite from the silence
Your heart in shards
Like the vase you dropped
Last autumn
—some things shatter—


A buzz emits from beside you
Messages of a different variety
You have been abandoned by all, but one
Hello, you have not forsaken me
The shards of heart, mend
Form a kintsugi heart
Love flowers in the cracks
—some things bloom—

@toopragmaticbookworm
Written for day 1 of @angelealowes poetry prompts: some things shatter, some things bloom
L Dec 2017
I cannot escape you, mother. You’ve left me with your sister who regards me with the same cowardice and lack of warmth you nearly killed me with. Her mind closes shut so easily, my words confuse her. I tried to establish boundaries. She had never heard of the term before. You hadn’t either. She drifted towards reading over documents and cleaning while I spoke, avoiding eye contact, as if ignoring me would make me disappear. You did the very same.
I am blessed and cursed with a broken mind, but her- she is a broken vase no gold can repair, for your sister, mother, rejects it. It’s a subject of great terror- that of change- to her. To repair oneself is impossible, a horror so terrible she never speaks of it. You too feared gold, mother, but your cracks glisten with it now, and I know it’s only because of me.
I’m afraid of her. She reminds me of who you were before the gold. She will never know the joys of understanding fear, of repairing oneself with the glistening stuff that is empathy, bravery and passion.

You are sick. Please get well.
I worry about you, but most of all, I am selfish with the desire to run away from your sister. Your sister, who is only the you I could not escape.

I am tired of you. Come back.


—L, *Letters I know you can’t hold
Kintsugi:
The Japanese art of by filling the cracks of broken pottery with a special gold liquid that acts like glue, joining the pieces together. The philosophy of the art is that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful.

An open letter to my mother.
---
Experimental writing blog: lamuertedelperro.tumblr.com
Paul Idiaghe Apr 2021
I am ready
to ring your rib

around my wrist
in triumph—

the faintest of relics    
enliven me. My lips

still layered
as in the night you lost them.

I hope to hammer  
your heart

& stuff its soil
in the sutures

of your skull;
I want to call that

the shadow to
kintsugi;

I want our memories never
to seep; to set

them up for decryption.
Unloving is a study—

consider an archaeologist’s
tentative hands

demystifying an artifact
once treasured for its secret

& leaving no spots
behind.
written after Kevin Young’s poem on the same title

— The End —