I sit on the counter, feet draped over the sink watching the sun rise over the trees through the open window
As I bring my coffee to my lips I feel the familiar chip
The one that my lips have felt every morning for years
This cup snuggles perfectly between my small hands, the warmth shielding them from the cool spring air

This cup has been through a lot
A few moves
More than a few lovers

The Alice in Wonderland decal has worn off and the seafoam enamel is cracked-- a mosaic of all the times I didn't care enough to hand wash it
The handle fell off once, I wanted to practice the Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken things with liquid gold
But I'm a college student, so glittery modge podge worked just fine

In many ways I am this cup
Used, well loved
Slightly broken, held together with glitter and good intentions
I don't mind the cracks
In the cup or in me
Cracks show that you are strong, can handle whatever is thrown at you, heartbreak or linoleum
They also allow light in
To brighten when darkness is all you can seem to find

As I reach the last sips of my coffee the sun is well up
My cats are hungry and I'm running late
Some days it's worth tardiness to reconnect to a part of you you thought was lost

Today is one of those days

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

It doesn't matter how many times
I manage to break or fall apart
With the pieces of me that shatter on the ground,
Put back together and repaired with gold
This lovely mess that makes up me
Is the only me I'll ever want to be.

She’s beauty, she’s grace.
With blood in her veins and heat circulating through her frame,
You could compare her to a furnace.
Carrying energy throughout her body and distributing it evenly where it’s needed.
It’s the pressure, the turbulence, the years of experience that molds and forges her heart into the form it takes.
Her heart is made of ceramic, shaped into a wide-mouthed or funnel-enclosed hollow and glazed with painted flowers, or abstract patterns, or tales of wars and legends featuring holy beings and storybook beasts.
Her heart is the fortune of archaeologists and antiquarians alike, the field of study of historians, the apple of poets’ eyes. They seek to wipe every speck of dust that obscures every stroke, every detail, every scar and fracture they seek to decode.
Because as beautiful as ceramic can be, it is brittle and delicate and easily fractures as hearts do. Because if there’s one thing ceramic and hearts have in common, they can only withstand a certain amount of stress for so long.
Because every scar tells a story. No visible fracture can be just a fantasy.
A scratch from heartbreak, a mark from rejection, a line from quarrel. A scar from unrequited love, a scar from a failed test mark, a scar from falling over while biking. A breakage from inner demons.
We are the same. We suffer the same.
Yet the painted flowers, the abstract patterns, the murals telling tales of wars and legends featuring holy beings and storybook beasts, they all elude us, because we’re inclined to focus on the debris before us.
We’d rather walk around the debris, walk over the debris, avoid touching the debris when we’re well within our ability to repair and mend the debris.
Gold for recovery, silver for hope, platinum to mend her broken pieces.
Gold to crown her a winner, to declare her triumph.
Silver to ease her troubled mind, to give her hope anew.
Platinum to strengthen her, to enlighten her, to remind her that she can rise up again.
Golden joinery, or kintsugi, as the Japanese call it — it’s the art of repairing broken pottery with gold, or silver, or platinum, holding its fragments together by a tight bond. It’s meant to treat breakage and repair as part of the history of the object, rather than something to disguise.
She’s beauty, she’s grace.
Her heart is made of ceramic — and gold and silver and platinum intertwined, a story of heartbreak, rejection, and quarrel conquered by recovery, hope, and strength, and proof that she is more than her heartbreak, her rejection, her storms and trials and tribulations.
She is, quite literally, the cloud with a silver lining.
Her heart is art.
But it need not be displayed in a museum case, or in an antique shop window, or a gallery chamber.
Because she, in all of her beauty and grace, she is the museum case, the antique shop window, the gallery chamber.

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.

Cracked and broken,
Pieces scattered,
From a dream awoken,
To being shattered,
Broken from what I lack,
I can feel every crack.

Each piece has a story,
Of life, in of itself,
Some times of glory,
Others of poor health,
All these memories on my back,
It's no wonder I crack.

So instead I pull together,
And fill in what's missing,
With gold and put pressure,
Until all the cracks glisten,
Now I stand up, broken,
But within gold is woven.