To I
To I
You told me you are guilty
Don’t be
There are only so many ways
to tell someone they deserve kindness
You seek love
Comfort, friendship
What is wrong with that?
Nothing, I tell you
A broken vase
Shattered into pieces
Dejected on the cold, tiled floor
Though have you ever heard of Kintsugi?
It means ‘gold joinery’
But I call it Japanese black magic
People believe that when something has suffered damage
And has a history
It becomes even more priceless
I think you’re beautiful already
Enough for me anyways
But even more stunning when the light catches on
The brightest parts of you
Consider that when you feel broken
They can keep talking.
I won’t listen
Grades and reports mean nothing either
Nothing to me
Do people really hold
The brand of a shattered mirror
That high?
Idiots.
I glance at you regularly
From the corner of my eye, where I’m sitting
Back row, fourth table
You’re in the front
You cannot see me
Sometimes, your hand wavers
Above a selection of pencils
Composite colours, or complementary?
The ideas are all yours
You’re staring outside the window again
Is that dove friend of yours outside once more?
I wonder what it’s like to be free like that
I see your head, turned to the left
30-degree angle
Pen wavering in frustration
I can do maths
You say you can’t
Not anymore
I don’t believe you
Friendship is a hard thing
Some equations refuse to intersect
I told you, I’m good at maths
Solve for a, solve for b
Don’t you sometimes wish it was that simple
Perhaps written out on a page
Fill in the gaps, choose the correct word
How many solutions for this inequality?
Perhaps friendship is less like algebra
And more like music
A completed sonata against an unfinished one
Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor
Have you ever heard it?
It’s called ‘unfinished’ for a reason
Perhaps Schubert realised he was fighting the wrong battle
Sooner or later
Or maybe
That some battle are just not worth fighting
Perhaps you should improvise
A classical musician befriending a jazz player
An English nerd with a mathematician
A drama student with a librarian
Juxtaposition, they would tell you
We spend years searching for x
When perhaps
We were solving the wrong problem
Altogether
‘Find the unknown value’
I wish I could find the missing piece of my heart
That easily
Listen.
Price tags are worth nothing
Even some book blurbs are misleading
The opus of a symphony may not be correct
And in some cases the composer was dead
Long before they allegedly wrote it
Gold-diggers are worth nothing
Nor are people who only listen to advertisements
Stupid propaganda.
So look in the mirror
Look, look closely
And if you try hard enough
Perhaps
Among a million fractured reflections
You’ll notice
It was never the cracks
That stopped the light
