On my Instagram page (@elizabeth_ee), I’ve been doing this thing that I call Tiny Poem Sunday. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but every Sunday I post a short 4 stanza poem. My first few posts were based off of a poem I wrote while sitting on the floor of the Tate Modern on my last day in London. By breaking it up into small individual poems that could stand alone, it turned into something much better than the original. I’ve now pieced it back together, and I thought I would post it here. I hope you enjoy it. Here is a broken puzzle of a poem about breaking.

 

Your hands are stronger

than they look.

You touch my cheek

and it cracks

sending flowering vines across my face

in place of your fingerprints,

Because I am fragile.

I always have been.

My glass fingertips

shatter a little bit

every time I hold a book of poems

or your hand.

 

I am a holding pen for beauty

and I will soon understand

that I have been seeing myself

through your small eyes.

Now begin to glimpse the truth of my reflection

in the pieces of glass that fall from my skin,

Because I am so much weaker

than a mountain or a word.

I am the delicate, crumbling parts of them.

But the truth is, I would rather be a thousand pieces

breaking away in your hands

than leave no proof that we ever touched.

 

I was here for so long,

But now I’m beginning to feel

like building a palace out of my body

and going home to it.

I will thank you for the flowering cracks

you left in my windows

And you will let me go.

I will be left standing,

amazed at the strength of my own legs.

Watch me as I walk away.

You’ll see the back of my head as a mountain, resolute.

Only I’ll know the lovely truth of my cracking porcelain bones.