Where the Breaking Matters
by Kristy Webster
Don’t worry, I promise it will happen again.
A man shaped like your own heart will walk through the door of your flesh and destroy you.
Until then, eat the foods you like. Drill holes in your walls to hang your favorite pictures.
Call your father, or don’t. It depends on your damage. And his.
Today, take a long bath and count your lovers.
Remember how you tried. Remember why you failed.
Let your children eat cake for dinner. Just this once.
Ask yourself: What flavor is this alone-ness?
Does it taste like waiting? Or like healing?
If it be the latter, hold onto it longer than you like.
This type of alone calls for a pillar of cold, escalating patience.
Nighttime is an aching wound, I know this.
You haven’t felt the weight of another body in years and it shows:
In the sponginess of your outer layer,
the dark nets encircling your heavy-lidded eyes,
the bee-stung nature of your verbiage.
You’re not being punished and you haven’t been forgotten.
Remember when you brought home a kitten to soothe your love ache?
You named him Romeo to mock your own wavy appetite.
He turns six in August, and your mending is a private, soft spoken religion.
One day a white hot arm will reach inside of you, your lungs will pump
an invisible armor but in the end you will gladly suffocate,
you will smile inside the grip of lust and matter,
you will suffer for symbiosis, deserting the quietude and isolation
that brought you peace and resilience.
It will happen again, you will be blissfully shattered,
complicit to your own beautiful ruin.
“Where the Breaking Matters” by Kristy Webster to me is feminine, vulnerable, heart-breaking, soul-renewing, lyrically and poetically tender with more coarse threads giving us colorful and mute, intimate insights into not only the author, but ourselves as women. In my opinion these truths are weaved in a warmth that is hopeful, but realistic to female impressions after relationship after relationship has ended. Ms. Webster opens her treasure chested heart to us for which I am humbled; while suggesting that she is empathic and sympathic to the longings of other women to find a better love, a different love from lessons learned of what remains a glow and what became a chill.
It is very easy to become so bitter about romance that one shuts them self away from any future, so I particularly was drawn to, “Drill holes in your walls to hang your favorite pictures.”, “nighttime is an aching wound”, “the bee-sting nature of your verbiage” and “Remember the kitten you brought home to sooth your love ache”. Yes, I know all of these, but wouldn’t have written them as well or vividly.
Men often say to me that they do not understand women at all. Gentleman, I suggest you read these words with great care if you truly wish to understand women. The beauty here is beyond excellent writing or clever phrases or rhythm for it is intimately personal and also representative of being female.
Thank you so much. You are always so thoughtful in your comments. <3
Exquisite pain in a lonely poem.
Very well done and beautiful, the poetry flows through and through.
Stunning!
I love how you float above your words, free to give like no other.
This wrapped around me like a cold winter night – feelings, thoughts, too close for comfort hit all the senses. Very and exquisitely well written Kristy – yes indeed.
I love the poetry!
Wish I saw this one before. You’ve touched on a universal experience, but so private and raw.
Does it taste like waiting or like healing? When it tastes like healing, when you realize “you’re not being punished and you haven’t been forgotten” is when they walk in the door.
But then, we can never be ready. We just have to surrender to the blissful shattering, the beautiful ruin.
Love how this reads like both an essay and a poem. Like both a warning and a celebration. Like both a story about the reader and about the self. Bravo!
This is a woman in touch with the rio debajo el rio and the llorona and the pme and qme of herself. This is a cantadora, a griotte, and she is my sister in ways that remind me of why I got my degree in Transformative Language Arts. She is a truth-teller. I see her soul on display when I read her words, and I see every woman unafraid to be wild. Kristy horrifies me, because she makes me look at myself in all my artistic nakedness (the work I have done, and have yet to do). I hate her, and I love her, as I hate and love myself. Kristy MAKES me look at my heart and my crotch, and my tears, and my power. Damn her and praise her – she makes me look.
Thorn, thank you for connecting us. And YOU SUCK for it too.
This beautiful pain is sensitive, original, candid and vulnerable. Straight women repeatingly complain about their man’s objectifing, lying and unavailablity. Look at the last line: “It will happen again, you will be blissfully shattered, complicit to your own beautiful ruin.”
I am fortunate to be romantically unlovable to women I have feelings for, but adorable to cats. A wise woman suggested getting a cat for my loneliness. My reply was witty, but too inappropriate to share. Kristy has had more than one “Romeo”, but no Romeo seems to be enough whether cat or man. Why must romantic love, well intended by sensitive women of any orientation lead to so much fatalistic, hopeless despair?
You had me at crotch
hahahahahahaha…
The poetry of dreams and scars. Wonderful!