Kintsugi of the Heart

You didn’t shatter my heart,

But you broke it into dozens of pieces.

I was looking for collaborative love,

A meeting of minds, a mixing of creativity -

Partners in crime, in artistic endeavour, in imaginative shenanigans,

The kind of mixed media that produces clever but amazing things.

What I got instead was a parasite.

Not so easy to flick you away,

When you sucked the will to create out of me.

But I know the secret:

Creativity is a literal wellspring,

And though you sucked me dry

Like some kind of demented sump pump,

It just takes a bit of time

For the spring to refill itself.

Like Isis searching for the pieces of slaughtered Osiris,

Like Psyche looking for the lover she betrayed,

I went hunting.

I went searching.

I went grieving.

Like both paragons of love,

I had an empty box

And needed to fill it.

I learned to cook-

And found a piece of my broken heart in the soup.

I got back on the torch-

And found another piece nestled in the new beads I’d made.

I went outside, took pictures of the spring flowers,

And found a piece, glistening with morning dew.

Another was in the frass of the empty butterfly habitats, looking a bit indignant.

I continued writing.

I’ve gotten, so, so much better,

I always thought I would be sharing those successes with you,

Incorporating your wicked commentary and input,

But you left before my first win.

I found a piece of my heart

Tucked in the electronic pages

Of each commentator and encourager.

My husband plucked one off the bed

After some particularly spicy fun we enjoyed,

The hands that held me when I cried after your betrayal

Were the ones that helped me gather the pieces of my creative self.

He’s my editor, now.

He’s the one who has the late-night talks about my stories,

Talking implications, interesting points, zinging twists.

All of these, and more, I collected in my box.

Not to put on my shelf as reliquary, or painful reminder, or catafalque.

It was a collection of raw materials.

Have you heard of kintsugi?

Of course not, that would imply you cared about life, and living.

Well, I learned the Japanese art of creating ethereal beauty from destruction.

Pieces of heart can be rejoined,

Sanding off the rough, sharpened edges,

So that soothing time and re-channeled energy

Can go where it’s needed.

Then painted with gold, to show the location of the damage.

That wellspring? The one you drained?

Now more than a trickle, more than a river in flood,

Directed towards people and projects that sorely need it.

New bead techniques, recipes better than the ones you sneered at,

So many butterflies released for freedom

Into a world that needs their fragile lives.

And, where my creative spring begins its journey into the world,

An art installation-

A kintsugi heart.

A reminder.

A trail marker.

A promise, to myself.

Soul-aching, broken, beauty, created from destruction.