What the Tide Breaks
I arrange the broken shells, searching
for their other halves.
Severed from the same body, they glisten with insides exposed—smooth nacre against rough, weathered exteriors.
Like me, split between two worlds.
The shells hold secrets
in their iridescent chambers, just as I carry stories
I'll never know.
My fingers trace their edges, feeling for the break
that separated them from wholeness.
Mother, are you also searching tide pools for missing pieces? Do you run your thumb along photographs, wondering about the weight of my absence?
These shells teach me that even broken things can catch light, that beauty lives in the spaces between what was and what remains.
