Shattered: Revisited

I was holding onto it and then suddenly, without any warning, it exploded in my hands. The large piece of glass I was holding smashed into the cement floor of the basement and turned into a sea of glass.

I started to cry. I looked down at my legs and saw blood from the many pieces that showered down on me. I continued to cry as I knelt down onto the glass and started to pick up the pieces, adding cuts to my hands as well.

While I was crying, the glass was rejoicing. It sang as it rubbed against itself on the floor. It was a beautiful mess. It reminded me of a quote I had recently read by Margaret Atwood:

"You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter. I want to be with someone."

I was sad and shocked but mostly I was mad. I was mad that I hadn’t been more careful with the glass. I didn’t handle it with care. It reminded me of a conversation I had recently with a friend about relationships. Or more specifically, about the end of a relationship when your heart is in pieces and only then is it that you realize how careless you were with it. How careless it can be to look forward to seeing someone, to know how they taste, and how their breath feels on your neck. You let yourself get close and all of a sudden it all goes away, without warning. And when that happens, you say you are heartbroken. Your idea is shattered and so is your heart. And so is the glass.

I was mad because things change and and they break unexpectedly and it becomes your job to pick up the pieces. But sometimes there are pieces that you can’t find or are too difficult to reach. So you learn to be careful so you don’t get hurt again. You build a wall, avoid a room, a place, a person. You move on. Buy a plastic replacement. Something that won’t break this time.

I swept up the last of the glass, wiped away the tears and started putting band-aid’s on the cuts. They are already fading. And I am moving on. I will forever be moving on, until something else breaks. Or I find the glue to hold it all together.

“I feel like the word shatter. I want to be with someone.”