A person breaks in ways that can’t be undone—

words that can’t be taken back,

a touch that lingers long after it’s gone,

the weight of things left unsaid.

Time moves forward, but damage does not fade.

It settles into the body, into the quiet spaces,

into the way someone hesitates

before speaking, before reaching, before trusting.

as a fabric

I am made of Nylon

and like every

manmade

material I start out

Natural

a thread

of living and dead

fossil

fuel

that is made

by heating and cooling

made plastic

stretched across

the skeleton

of an umbrella

to keep the family

from the sun and rain

and wrap us in between

the fluff and down

in the glove of

of winter

it's a fabric called

Ripstop

and for all its strength

if it rips

it doesn't stop

and every attempt

to glue or patch

makes a bigger rip

in Time

03.15.2025

Broken pieces challenge @dctezcan

Fragility is hidden,

A deeply rooted facet,

Flourishing amidst ever present insecurities.

Though I may bend, I may also break

And far too easily.

Words have teeth and actions fists,

Each the fiercest opponent,

Akin to catalysts able to strike like

Lightening amidst a raging storm.

Tread cautiously, I plead,

For often, you will find me

Teetering as I stroll upon

Wobbly branches, easily shaken

By the slightest of breezes.

Take care and remember

Words have an endlessness in life,

Spinning themselves like finely woven steel

Within the tapestries of our hearts and minds.

There is such sorrow and difficulty to be had with

Disregarding ill spoken words,

Or worse yet,

Actions driven by ignoble thoughts.

Forgiveness can remain difficult, at best,

And moving beyond such things, nearly futile

When the disease they’ve created festers

To eat healthy tissue in putrid destruction,

Effectively killing all affection formerly felt

In the heart of the afflicted one.

Choose wisely and take care,

Treading cautiously for I am unable

To sustain myself for any length

Against the anguish inflicted by

Webs woven of ill intended

Words and deeds.

Yes, my name is fragility,

Whose existence is threatened by

A thought, a word, or a deed

Born of an iniquitous nature.

Remember while I may bend -

To only a degree -

Inside me the heartbeat

Sustaining my regard and affection

May eventually break,

Shattering asunder into little pieces and

Rendering my heart like a shattered window,

Its jagged edges barring all possibility

Of further entry

Into my broken heart.

Cynthia Calder, 03.13.25

When I fall off life's wall

ignominiously

(a common occurrence)

I collect the pieces

of my shattered psyche

(call it perseverance).

I glue them together

as best I can muster

(without insurance)

but I never can put

them back like before

(but hope for resurgence).

So, feel free to call me

the Humpty Dumpty Man.

(I will not take offense.)

But unlike the egg man

I stand and try again

(without self-assurance).

I didn't truly know what alone felt like

Until I had no one to come home to

Her collar hung on my wall planner,

taunting me with the lack of a body attached to it.

The "I love you" as I walk out the door

escaping my lips to an empty room.

The smell of her dissipating day by day

as air fresheners slowly overwhelm the apartment.

An empty room.

Empty room.

Empty.

You always know this day will come,

but never expect it to arrive so soon.

The tears don't stop,

they run

on and on and on and on.

The empty bed

The empty couch

the empty kennel

the empty collar.

You're never ready,

but the day does come.

She does leave.

Now, whether we face the day or lay in bed forever,

that's determined day by day.

There's no one to turn to,

no one to sleep with

no fur to cry into after a bad day.

And eventually this may pass,

or the pain will get smaller

as the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, decades go on

but that doesn't change the hesitation I have

anytime I open my apartment door.

I used to think time healed all wounds until I got hurt.

I used to think time would help me forget.

I used to think time would make it hurt less

I then learned time only put distance between me and the event.

I then learned that the more time that past, the longer it would follow me.

After too much time it made it trauma.

After too much time it made it stick.

After too much time I realized I couldn't forget it.

Time didn't mend me.

Time made me into what I am today.

I wish I knew I had to mend myself.

I wish I knew not to give it time.

Can you imagine the amount of time people had mended torn clothing,

In an age where mass produced clothing wasn't as accessible as now?

Could you put yourself into perspective, where you might find that denim jeans stretch and thin until the threads come bare?

Imagine yourself, patched to hell,

Here and there.

When you scratch and claw at someone, tearing at them like you're trying to keep them there, keep them behind.

Your nails will claw and dethread clothes, but it's really their mind.

Skin will break, blood will flow, and all the things in between.

When you break a person of their will, there's no mending that spot.

There's only the in-between.

The in-between is the place where the mind comes to settle,

to... 'cope' and in which ways, an ugly scar might poke,

poke through to show, it's threadbare place.

In a world of pretty and ugly,

It's a scar for all the obscene.

So when you ask, when you state that 'a person is, among all else, a material thing'

I can agree. I can believe that it is like cloth, 'easily torn' and where mending counts most, 'not easily mended' because humans aren't cloth.

They're not so easily blended.

Sometimes,

I feel like I am on the back of a pick up,

tossed about like a piece of cargo,

falling out the back with many clangs and lots of yells.

And then, laying in the middle of the road,

I watch the rest of cargo safely tucked in the

flat bed of the truck moving toward the horizon,

carefully placed and organized just so.

And all the while,

I watch the truck drive away.

And I don’t run after it,

because I know

it will not wait for me.

A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. No material is easily mended, although some can appear that way to the untrained eye. A hole in one's clothes can be easily mended materially, but an artist's eye is necessary to mask the hole visually. Broken glass can be seen strewn about my neighborhood, but rebuilding a shattered bottle takes skills most will never possess.

Have I been torn? Outright shattered? What skills would mending this person take? Are they skills any human possesses? I feel like the half-buried hexagon of glass next to me, both of us sitting beneath an oak tree, both of us once pieces of a larger whole that fit together, that belonged somewhere. Only now, the piece of glass is unrecognizable from whatever it was once a part of. I'm not that, not visibly altered, not broken in the same sense. Not broken in the sense of a material break, a physical trauma, a wound. But a person is more than the cells that build them. They are more than the myriad of sludges and slimes oozing from their orifices. Material can include psychological material as well as the objects of material science studies. The psyche too can tear.

A person is easily torn and not easily mended. I'm being torn, time and time again, by invisible seamrippers pulling at the threads of family loyalty. Invisible seams held strong for damn near a decade, but the string has frayed and caught on some sharp edge. Torn, and not easily mended. Torn, and damaged by the force of whatever pulled the string, whatever made the wool no longer cover my eyes.

I pretend all the time now

I pretend you went on a long trip instead of dying

I’m doing better than I really am

I am coping so well

that I don’t need to ugly cry

Because you died

I pretend I still hear you

That every house noise I hear is you getting my attention

To let me know you are still around

(I think)

I pretend I am not so lonely that every fiber of my being aches to hear from you

I pretend to not be mad at you for dying so early

For leaving my daughter and son without a father

and me a widow

I pretend I don’t have enough sorrow to fill all the dark matter in the universe

I pretend I am not still mad at you

that I have forgiven you completely at least ten times

(not quite yet)

Maybe if I keep pretending

One day, I’ll believe my own bull crap