I didn't think enough about the way things broke.
Most days, I didn't think at all about that sort of thing. I just tapped my card against the little black box at the checkout, ignored the donation button, and went on my way. I just hopped on the train. Walked into my office. Did several dozen tasks. And that was that.
But she was crying yesterday, Nina.
Full on, hinged-at-the-waist, sobbing. I was so floored by it, I tried to ask around but no one else was as confused as I was. There was coffee on the floor, sure. But that wasn't worth sobbing like this was it? I asked. That was a mistake.
Well, no, Jack, her dog died six months ago. She's got a headache. Her boyfriend's sick. And you don't pay her enough, so her rent check bounced.
I wanted to be mad at the tone, but something shifted inside of me, something uncomfortable, and I was suddenly back in my childhood home listening to my father berate me for making my mother cry. I never meant to. And I certainly didn't mean to make things worse now. So I just stood there, watching Nina weep.
When she looked up at me, blue eyes glassy with tears and cheeks red from the force of her grief, everything fractured.
It hit me like a train.
Things break a little at a time. Chipping, chipping, chipping away. A piece here and there lost. A structural point of the soul ruined by a spidering crack. It wasn't hard then to see all the breaking points inside of me. A missed alarm. A train being late. Tripping over a step and falling in front of a crowd.
Spilling my coffee and breaking a mug.
And I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop the panic filling my chest or the inevitable breaking point that would send me to my knees in agony. I couldn't save myself.
I just...had to wait for the breaking point.
About the Creator
Silver Daux
Shadowed souls, cursed magic, poetry that tangles itself in your soul and yanks out the ugly darkness from within. Maybe there's something broken in me, but it's in you too.
Ah, also:
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FPS: The Last Flame Challenge Winners
Welcome to our first Winners Announcement of the year and to the final challenge in the Fall Poetry Series. The Last Flame invited writers to sit with endings, using fire as a central image to consider what remains when something burns out: ash, warmth, memory, silence, or the faint promise of what comes next. The strongest pieces treated endings as gradual rather than sudden, allowing them to flicker, dim, and linger.
By Vocal Curation Team5 days ago in Resources
Comments (7)
Ooof. Well described!
Little by little and then all at once. Absolutely accurate and heartbreaking
A sudden, devastating clarity on how the small, unseen breaks finally shatter the soul.
I felt so sad for both Nina and the MC. Your story was so deep and emotional. Loved it!
This was so powerful in so few words. I have been, sadly, like the MC in the past not knowing or noticing that things were going wrong until something snaps or breaks. Incredible writing
Short but packing such a punch!! I feel that chipping, chipping, chipping away. Such an impactful piece for me personally. Loved the writing :)
I felt this like a toyota camry to the chest. I keep waiting for my breaking point, and yet somehow, there's always just enough to scrape myself back together. But hoo boy when it finally comes, it's going off like a warhead.