Fragility

A porcelain vase, balanced on the edge of a table,
Is very fragile indeed.
A lot of time, heart, and energy went into those intricately painted pieces of ceramic.
But in one wag of a dogs tail,
One slip of a guest in high heels,
A tiny waver on the richter scale,
All that could be destroyed.
And you couldn’t ever fit it back together,
Because part of it, a fine dust, a tiny sliver,
Would always be missing.
You would never find it again.
Never.

A vase is fragile,
Hearts are fragile, friends are fragile.
In fact, everything in the world is breakable.
Some say we only bend, never break.
Only for the stolid is that true.
Emotion is breakable.
Love, fear,
Was there ever anything more fragile?

Imagine yourself
Lying in bed, the clock reading one minute to midnight.
One second to midnight.

How do you know, how can you know?
Tomorrow, one second from now,
Might be the day that you break.
Someone you love breaks.
Everything that seemed so built, so sturdy,
Everything you found yourself relying on,
Shattered apart.

Imagine yourself.
What would you do then?

It is all so fragile.
In one wag of a dogs tail,
One slip of a guest in high heels,
A tiny waver on the richter scale.

Destroyed.

Oh, at one second to midnight.