I threw away the shards of my pretty solid green 3-cup teapot today. I couldn't bear to have the little bits of it – the parts that had formed the elegant handle and the dainty British-looking lid – smolder at me from the trash any longer. There was no hope for it from the moment it fell. The main body, even the spout were intact, but only mockingly so, because where the handle had detached, there were two enormous, tea-spilling holes. For a few days I kept it on my desk, holes turned away from me so that I wouldn't have to stare the truth in the face: my teapot is gone.

I wish I could say that it had broken honestly, innocently. That would have been easier. I so hate when I ruin things, and it is just my luck that I am graceless enough to do it often. Ask the big soup mug my mother and I had spent weeks looking for before I came to college. Ask the pretty blue glass candleholder my older sister gave me as a Christmas gift. Ask the cupboard full of glasses and mugs that cascaded to their doom after I unloaded the dishwasher. But all these were easier than losing my teapot, because this was a casualty of more than artless movement; I broke it in senseless anger. It was collateral damage, I suppose, if that language suits you.

Perhaps it doesn't make sense that I should wax eloquent in the death of a teapot, but in truth, this probably has little to do with the teapot itself. Well, okay, so it has a lot to do with the teapot itself – I loved the thing for the few weeks I had it. I was so delighted to have a teapot that I had dug it out and made tea in it (despite the availability of an electric water heater) before I even made it home from Great Falls, where I bought it. I made tea constantly, sometimes just for the joy of making tea in my very own teapot. I dreamed I was starting a tradition of sorts: come home, kick off my shoes, put the teapot in the microwave, pluck out a nice black tea, and do my homework as the tea cooled and infused in the little green pot beside me.

In a moment of blindness in an argument with Ian, I tossed a pillow at my chair and the little green teapot was gone. Obliterated. It was like lashing out and hurting a young sibling, except that this sibling will not heal. Now I haven't the heart to make any tea. My mug and thermos stand useless by my desk, and though I've disposed of the evidence, all they can do is continue to ask, "Why?" Tonight I looked at teapots available on the internet, but it's like trying to replace a dead friend. They're not the same. Even the place I bought mine from, a charming store called In Cahoots for Tea, doesn't have quite the same pot in the same size. My regret is steeped further with every fancy teapot Google presents to me.

Because I was angry. Because I feel that I have to demonstrate it with violence. Because sometimes artlessness is artful – that my anger should take away what I love before I can scare away those I love. Little shards of it have stuck in my feet now and then over these past few days, and I tread them willingly. Will this one teach me? Will this one? How about now?

Out of my mind.

This is mostly intentionally punctuation-light. I think I'll call it poetry. Feel free to put in line breaks and punctuation how you imagine one would. We could call it creative essay, perhaps. This is what listening to Tegan and Sara does to you. I'd listen to this song while reading in order to get the full effect. Boy, do those girls have a way with things.


I want you close to me like the music like when you turn up the volume louder and louder until it almost hurts and you’re cringing but that’s not enough so you press the headphones deeper into your ears until it almost hurts but this time not because it’s too loud but because it’s still not enough because you just want it inside you, inside your head, inside your heart in your belly in your hands in your feet Oh God, I can’t get close enough I can’t I can’t I can’t

But you go and I know you must, so I put my music on repeat and turn up my headphones.

I want to see you like when you read a book all about someone’s life and how they seemed to know just what to do at every turn or they didn’t but it doesn’t matter because isn’t it wonderful that somebody had a life and that they lived it, and if it’s gone now it doesn’t matter it’s just that they lived they loved and I want that I want to know that it all turns out okay that we hold hands peacefully when the sun explodes and I try to remember the future but can’t.

But you go and I know you must, so I plot out the rest of our days with a little room for secret plans.

I want to feel you like a painting when you look at the lines and the woman’s face and the colors how they mix and blur and you can’t touch it because the sign says and because you can’t; it was another time another place and maybe the artist made love with the model every afternoon, but he was bothered because he couldn’t paint the little lines in her eyes just right I’ve tried to draw you, your eyes your eyes, but I just couldn’t get it right and nobody would understand and I don’t think I do either

But you’re tired and want to sleep so I stare at your eyelids.

2:59 am

Why oh why did I drink that mocha at 11:00 pm why are GoogleMaps and Craig's List so damn fascinating all of a sudden why isn't there a Craig's List for Helena why can't I move to Vancouver and have tiny adorable kittens/bunnies/puppies/canucks/apartments nao nao nao??????????


I'm beginning to think that you do these things just to upset me, YHWH. We shall have words, my friend.