The Mug That Knows My Cracks

I drink from the same chipped mug

On the days I don’t know how to be a person.

It’s the one with the hairline fracture

running down the handle like a secret vein,

the faint ring where I burned the milk

That winter, everything tasted like leaving.

✧

I own nicer cups—

smooth, symmetrical,

white like a dentist’s waiting room.

But on bad mornings, my hands reach

for this imperfect thing

like they recognize themselves.

✧

The crack doesn’t leak.

Not yet.

It just holds the heat in a strange way,

warmer on one side,

like a heart that only trusts

It's left ribcage.

✧

I tell myself if it ever breaks

I’ll throw it out immediately,

no ceremony,

no glue.

I’m lying, of course.

There are people I haven’t let go of

for far less.

✧

Sometimes I run my thumb along the flaw

while the kettle whines,

thinking about all the places I’ve split—

the job I loved until I didn’t,

The night I said “I’m fine” so hard

I believed it for almost an hour.

✧

This mug has seen me cry

over emails and playlists

and a lasagna that wouldn’t set.

It’s been quietly present

for every “I don’t know what I’m doing”

poured into black coffee.

✧

The irony:

I warn guests not to use it.

“Careful, that one’s cracked,”

I say, as if I’m not offering

the same disclaimer

Every time someone gets close.

✧

One day, maybe,

I’ll stop holding myself

like I’m about to shatter

and realize

I’ve been carrying heat and history

just fine this whole time—

✧

that broken-looking

is not the same

as broken.