Still Using It

I almost threw it away this morning,

held it over the trash and felt the weight—

three years of toast and eggs and late dinners,

three years and now this rough edge

where the glaze gave up and broke

into something sharp and honest.

My thumb catches on the chip.

The ceramic underneath is raw,

naked in a way the rest of the plate

isn't allowed to be.

I could cut myself if I wasn't careful,

if I wasn't already used to

the particular way this plate

will hurt me.

But I'm putting it back.

Setting it in the cabinet

where it lives with the other plates

that don't have anything wrong with them,

and I'm choosing this one

because it knows my hand now,

because the chip has become

part of what it means to eat from it,

because something about keeping it

feels like the only honest thing

I've done in weeks.

It will break eventually.

Maybe next week, maybe next year.

The chip will spread or deepen

or the plate will finally give up

and shatter into pieces too small

to reassemble.

But not today.

Today it holds my food.

Today I eat from the broken place

and I'm grateful

for something that refuses

to hide what it's already lost.