Broken

Sometimes I feel like I'm broken. I feel like there is a piece of me missing.

Perhaps as I was cooling from the heat of being fired in the kiln, I was dropped, shattered, pieces flying everywhere, hurting others, some thrown away, some never to be found again.

Or maybe it was before that. Maybe I was never whole to begin with. Maybe in configuring me, the artist made a drastic error. Perhaps I was too tainted for his pure hands. My clay, being recycled, didn't mold out to his design. So he tried to fix it. Ripping pieces apart, molding for hours, and I still didn't come out right.

Maybe, he didn't like me. Maybe when he saw what he had created he threw it in anger. Leaving the pieces on the floor to disintegrate, listening to their daily crunch beneath his heavy work shoes.

Regardless of how I ended up this way, the fact is that I am not like all the other vases on the shelf.

I can paint myself blue or pink to match the gorgeous colors of the others, but the paint bubbles, quickly peeling away to reveal my putrid exterior. I can add designs and patterns, colors and embellishments, but none of them last; they always fall away, revealing the crimson stain of my true colors.

Sitting on the shelf, I am overwhelmed with emotion. I wounder why I am broken, and why I cannot be fix. I wonder why I am not like the others, no matter how hard I try.
I watch people come into the shop, envying the pretty vases and purchasing for them for their kitchen tables. I see the joy of the artist as he makes a sale, sharing his little beauties with the world.

But come closing, I am still where I was yesterday and will be tomorrow. The artist turns off the light, he too giving up on me and leaving me alone in the darkness.

Solitary in the night I begin to wobble. Carefully throwing my weight against itself, struggling to tip over. I am so tired of standing upright.

Finally, I feel it, liberation. I am hurtling off the top shelf. The ground rapidly approaching. Faster and faster I fall, until finally, with a crash, I smash into the cold hard floor, pieces scattering all around. I exhale the stress and tension with the liberation from my structure.

Broken into a million pieces, the putrid color finally, permanently, erased from existence, I lay there in the silent shop. Despite the ruined labor of the hardworking artist, I am at peace. The world is unchanged by my removal and I finally got the one thing I always wanted: to be taken of the shelf.