kintsugi in poetry

it’s not about how hard you worked
not about the money that you made
not about how many people saw it
it’s about putting your truth out there
put your truth out there, goddamn it
the rest will come or it won’t and
it’s okay either way as long as you
know you gave the world your truth

if you spend half of a lifetime looking
for something worth saying and spend the
other half learning how to say it and then
say it even once, you got most of us beat

we’re all made of coal, deep down
anthracite, bituminous, luminous
a dead past compressed into matter
but if we try to set fire too soon
we’re each only going to burn away
but diamonds are not made through
the quick application of a flame
rather through pressure and time
that is how nearly all substance
of lasting value springs forth
a past given pressure and time

sometimes we’re even better, though
if we deal with our damage correctly
if we know when it’s more than okay
to admit the ways you were broken
also knowing that now you’re whole
like in Japan when they put gold
in the cracks of smashed porcelain
gleaming kintsugi art pieces us all
we are all left more beautiful
for the sake of our healing

just pressure and your truth
the passage of time and you
you kintsugi masterwork