What Breaks When You Force It

I measured twice.

The blade was new.

I was being careful.

Halfway through, the wood caught.

The saw jumped.

The grain opened up wrong—

jagged, splintering,

not a clean split but a fracture.

The dresser's been in my apartment

for eight years. It fit perfectly

in that corner. Now it doesn't fit

anywhere. Too large to move whole.

Too broken to look whole

once I'm done with it.

I stand in the dust cloud,

sawdust in my hair, my hands,

the smell of fresh wood,

looking at what I've done.

The cut isn't clean.

The edges are rough.

It looks like violence,

not solution.

I thought if I planned it right,

if I was careful, if I didn't rush,

the wood would cooperate.

Would split the way wood is supposed to.

But wood has its own grain.

Its own history.

Its own refusal.

Now I have two pieces

that don't look like anything.

The drawer fronts don't align.

The interior is exposed,

the places that were meant to be hidden.

I could glue it back together.

I could leave it like this.

I could throw it away

and start with something

that fits through the door

without destroying itself first.

The saw is on the floor.

The dust is settling.

The dresser is in pieces,

and I'm standing in the middle of it all,

realizing too late:

some things can't be fixed

once you've forced them

to break the way you wanted.