handcrafted

i made a bird for you

hand crafted

out of clay

to hold my greatest fears

you had always treated them

like feathers

fragile and precious

passed down by

those things you

protected me from

when i was so very young

ceramic and cracked

you pieced them together

with

glue

and

tape

you knew would peel

as soon as

my heart got so cold

you picked me up

porcelain

and practiced

knowing it was all

so very conditional

now i know

what it is to have

unconditional

i was fine china

until i was too sharp

to hold

complicated

and queer

so odd

you pretended

not to know me

the last time we met

so i built you a bird

left the mermaid

on my bathroom wall

put a period on the sentence

i'd let be a question mark

for so

very long

-r🩵