The Next Time

The next time my heart breaks, I would like it to happen all at once. A complete shattering. A plate sliding from the hutch top-shelf with a crash that shakes even the floor. I would like the pieces so tiny scattered so far the original becomes unrecognizable. A plate, a pitcher, a gravy bowl, my heart.

I want to feel it all at once. Collapse to the floor to salvage the pieces, to find I must begin again. Begin again from nothing. This heart un-salvageable. Begin again from nothing.

Rather than. Rather than chipping away tiny nick by tiny nick. Perfect except. Chip chip. Glued together. Well loved, entirely functioning but. Hairline crack. Archive the crack, tell it's story, talk of character building. When piece by piece, crack by crack, it breaks. Set it aside, for repair, for discard, in the back corner of the shelf. Out of sight, out of mind. And move on, while it sits, waiting.

I craft this perfect break. This shattering, crashing, falling, the unforgiving pieces, while tracing my finger over old cracks. The jagged edges elicit a little more than dull pain. A little less than the threat of a cut. Without blood. Without comfort. And I realize

I have this all wrong.

The next time I'll get it right.

I'll say what I mean and I'll mean what I say and I'll know. How everything I worry about means so little. Next time I'll decide, again again again like I did in times too far past, to walk next to or in front of, but never again behind, fear. The next time I love.

I know how to break my own heart. Alone in the dark of night, alone in the sun-drenched afternoon. Shatter it, quick and loud, dropped from the top shelf. To take it cracked and chipped from the back corner of the shelf and push it over the edge into a million tiny  pieces. So I can start again anew. After that, what is there left to fear?

The next time, I'll get it right.