kintsugi

there is something indescribably beautiful about porcelain

the flawless smoothness, the indeterminate perfection

it's all curves and lissome grace and no one can find a fault

but when the water builds like a swelling word

like a battle cry against the unfairness of creation

if the porcelain cracks, will it be worth what it originally beautifully was?

there it is, that anonymity of being damaged

every crack renders it a stranger to the beautiful

no one claims ownership, for who will tie themselves to imperfection?

a single number, a little tally mark off of a chipped granite wall

sitting on a shelf filled with numerous obscurities

all of us broken, damaged creatures, lined up in factory lines

the shadows come play with us in the dust mote air

lights dancing across every jagged ridge and valley

they caress every point and soften the harshness with their silence

i like this, being not known

i like this darkness, this anonymity

for no one likes to jeer at shadowed nothings

but the morning comes, as it is wont

and we lift our shattered facades to the light of the sun

where the gold looms in its terrifying identifier

they paint gold over the broken parts of us

the jagged shadowy bits that no one seems to love

but now, gilded and shiny and never shadowed, we are treasured

the light refracts and turns us into a oscillating thing of glory

we are put in shelves in our factory lines, glimmering, sweetened

i revel in the smiles and whitened eyes, but sometimes

sometimes i like the days when the shadows held me

accepting, soothing, soft in the way they folded over my many pieces

they held me, and i felt loved

now they bounce and multiple in the many gold-laden cracks of myself

so i wonder if what i asked for was my wholeness

or just an appreciator of myself, even in all my broken parts.