I know I should be happy, with things given to me of love
But I can’t help it when everything is lost and gone
They’d tell me, At least you held it while it was there,
And if it’s ripped and broken, that it’s not their fault
That they’d warned me that some things cannot be held so tightly
Or it’ll crack, then shatter, and what I carried on a pedestal wasn’t so mighty
These words on the book would smear if I weren’t so careful,
But even accidents happen as the days unfold
A drop of a tear, or a thumb print on the side
Showing the history of where and who I was
What I was doing at the time when our family lost our luck
Or luck would be what we’d call it, as we never cracked the eggshells we walked upon
They’d question me at the alter and tell me to confess
As I’d hold the broken thing that I loved too hard to my chest
To my heart, for it’s empty, and maybe I could fill it
But this glass cuts too deep if I were to try to fit it in there
It’s ice in my hands, it’s burning coals in my mind
It’s a feather to the sky; if I’d set it on a scale, it’d weigh almost nothing
But if I were to swim with it, it’d be an anchor
And when the judge asks me what I have broken,
I’d say I broke the unspoken promise and had stepped out of line
I had cracked the shell that was holding together this family of mine
I hadn’t known that the threads would tangle with my limbs,
As it dangled from the sky
So when I stole a part of the night, and a part of the rest
They’d see in my hands
A broken, glass egg that I couldn’t put back together again.