Category: abuse

shattered on the floor
my favorite coffee mug
nothing big, not much of a thing,
just my favorite coffee mug--
sunshine yellow, with coffee beans,
and a coffee spoon printed inside at the top
along with a line from my favorite poem,
“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons”
yes, trite, you might say, emblazoned upon a coffee mug
but still, yes, I loved the mug, love the poem.
and there it was—
shattered upon the floor
there she stood,
apologizing—ad nauseam—
saying she’d buy another to replace it.
But it was not to be found.
Of course, the store didn’t have them anymore.

The mug was the first broken thing.
The first of a few, if it wasn’t liked,
didn’t fit into the ideal 
of what could be
forged of me
if pinched in the grip of tongs 
and held in the fire long enough
to be broken down to a molten,
malleable state, pounded upon the anvil, 
shaped, dipped in water to sizzle cool enough
to start the process over again—
for easy fracture.

Many things ended up broken, 
shelved, stored in closets—
pictureless frames and frameless pictures,
parts of me 
hidden away, never to be seen
sitting on shelves
in black closets—

until I emerged
chipped but no worse for wear
unbroken into the light.