When I start to like someone, I get scared.

scared to admit it and scared to fall.

I walk around with my heart in my hands,

I carry it like a delicate glass bowl.

I am careful not to drop it.

My glass bowl.

The glass bowl I carefully carried and protected has been shattered. again.

Once again, I am left to pick up the pieces.

I am careful, of course

the only person at risk of getting cut by the jagged pieces is me. Only me.

and I do not want to get cut cleaning up a mess that I did not make.

Yet that is how the game works these days,

they come in, examine my glass bowl – some even say that it is beautiful, that they have never seen anything like it!

and then, they break it.

by “accident”, of course.

And so I work to clean it up. I make sure not to create more of a mess. I make sure not to get cut by the jagged pieces. Because I do not want to get cut cleaning up a mess that I did not make.

sometimes, they come back and admire my work; they say well done! good for you!

and then they move on to another exhibit. Another glass bowl.

and I am left to reinvent my glass bowl once again. Forced to find and showcase the beauty of a once broken and now put-together glass bowl.

a glass bowl that I did not break.

my glass bowl. my heart.