forget your perfect offering

just ring the bells that still can ring

there is a crack in everything
 
that’s how the light gets in

- Leonard Cohen

there is a crack in everything

my professor shows us kintsukuroi tea cups on the projector the Japanese to English translation means

“golden repair”

she says

traditionally, the same tea cups are used in ceremonies for generations, their cracks filled in with gold.

it’s the damage that makes them beautiful

that’s how the light gets in

i am glass half empty

my heart is the size of my fist too often i give myself beatings

potential
 
leaking through cracks i make

i say, “my idealized self would have fixed these by now” wouldn’t have made cracks in the first place
 
her, some kind of invincible spiritual plumber
 
heals as a pastime & is never late
 
her confidence doesn’t have an asterix at the end all her cracks
 
are endearing
 
and forgivable

she gets a red ribbon cutting when they’re fixed within a
 
two day weekend.
 
meanwhile, no one throws a ceremony when i manage to get out of bed

do cracks even deserve gold when they take this long to fix?
 
i imagine liquid motivation spilling on bedroom floor, bus seat, hallways
 
all the countless hours wasted trying to find the newest, quickest method of being alone

when my wounds heal and shut into thicker skin i dig into my heart’s topsoil
 
— cracked & barren —
 
for feeling
 
try to rip this numbness out like a bad root
 
try to hold onto
 
feeling
 
like scarce nuggets of gold never seem to be worth enough

so i let my wounds be tender, golden & feeling instead
 
it’s own type of healing instead

my mother writes
 
“if light could speak,
 
It would say your name”

forget your perfect offering

the Latin to English translation of the word

patience
 
means “quality of suffering”

there will never be a time when i’m untouched by hardship
 
this world don’t have much patience for self care that interrupts the work week yet here i am
 
reclaiming my time
 
forgiving myself for all i’ve let slip
 
I stop missing my idealized self because i will never meet her

i call recovery
 
“healing” instead
 
because i know how it feels in my hands

because i don’t look for it in a mirror
 
just trust how it beats in my chest,
 
never as fast as i want,
 
but patiently doing the work nonetheless

just ring the bells that still can ring

i throw a small ceremony when i get out of bed
 
I decide, that’s its own kind of beautiful ritual of patience

the kind able to be used for centuries

Azura Tyabji is our February Poet in Residence.



Previously: Missing Persons Report Filed for the Knife of Charleena Lyles: June 18, 2017.