Some fractures are loud. Others whisper through the years, reshaping how we see ourselves and each other. This is a meditation on the ways breaking can both wound and reveal, and how we sometimes meet ourselves most fully in the ruins.
In the pieces that fell when we broke…
Up,
I found pieces of you that were whole.
I saw the beauty of things that you could
create without me.
In my state of breaking…
Down,
I met me. Swimming in oceans of questions.
Trying to salt wounds that wouldn’t
scab the hell over.
I hoped we could find time to break…
Bread,
instead of gathering crumbs of what
could have been beautiful banquets
of platters of plenty.
Perhaps our hearts needed breaking…
In,
like horses never before saddled
but ready to try without fear of buckle
under pressure of intensity.
I agree that we both broke…
Down
our own spirits without needing
the help of the other.
We kept snapping each other’s broken places.
© 2025 Frank Malaba
Breaking is rarely clean. It leaves jagged edges that catch on memory, on love, on who we thought we were. Yet in those shards, we sometimes find pieces that fit more honestly than before, a reminder that brokenness is not the end but a new shape forming.