Sometimes the way I see contentment isn’t a vast plain of rolling hills
with no peaks and sweet abandon all there at once.

Sometimes for me it comes in pieces that are sharp around the edges.
I have to hold them a certain way
and then I get to feel the smoothness of the moment
as my thoughtful nerves relax a little.

Sometimes if I have enough of them to fit together
there’s enough room for something to grow.
Like hope, or a fantasy, a mild happiness.
I section each thing off so that it neither reproduces nor withers
returning to them when everything gets cold.

Sometimes I go back to those pieces
and the detached state leaves me confused as to
why it meant so much when I found it. I stumble over them,
they break, I don’t think of them for a while.

Sometimes the new pieces I find would go great with the old
if only I had the right parts of each to make another bed
to grow some emotion out of.

And sometimes, I don’t bother with any of it.
Eventually it hits me, that each piece is fine for a moment
Although, I have not the skill
to make my own vast plain out of broken shards nor the expertise
to know just how sharp/fragile each one is before I grab it.
So they come and go.

But no matter where they are around me
they are impossible to dismiss entirely.

the light, it seems to
shine right out from you
angling along your jawline
catching on your hair

you never handled me with care,
so now my edges are sharp.

when you cut yourself,
*just know its your own fault.