It hurt in the way a gasp hurts- that little choked one you make as you watch something,
Something precious, priceless in a way you couldn't begin to conceptualize to others,
And you know it's going to shatter, ruined
And some might say "kintsugi",
The practice of gathering all those pieces and using gold to repair,
To fix all the breaks, cracks
And somehow make it more valuable? Beautiful? For having been broken before
Because they say there's a beauty in the breaking, in the act of repairing
But you know, you know that that's only to the outsiders, the new comers
The people who only know it after the fact
They see the gold and are blinded to the sharp edges hidden under it, smothered.
But you are here, now, looking at all the shattered pieces
And you try to gather them but some have been made into dust
Some small gaps exist where you couldn't find the microscopic shards
Lost on the floor, ready to be found by an unsuspecting foot, stepping blindly
And you are repairing it, filling those spaces with gold, and you look at your creation
Because it's not the same
You know what it used to be
What it can never be again.
Being left with the yearning,
The aching left behind by that peculiar sensation
Of looking at the thing you love
Changed beyond recognition.
Where is the beauty in that?
The longing for what used to be?
