Standing Closer to the Edge

 I was shaped beside you,

first grade sunlight,
dust on the classroom floor,
your shadow falling longer than mine
even then, stretching over me
like something protective.

You used to joke that we were destined,
meant to be best friends.
You, the overprotective bodyguard.
Me, no taller than three feet,
issuing royal commands
from a throne made of playground gravel,
ordering you around like a tiny tyrant
with scraped knees.

You never complained.
You just stood there, steady.

We were a matched set,
glazed and displayed.
The famous inseparable duo.
So famous, in fact,
we held tryouts to see who was worthy
to sit on the shelf beside us.

Years shaped us slowly,
like careful hands turning us on a wheel.
We wobbled. We steadied.
We survived small cracks.
Little arguments. Little reconciliations.
Nothing that felt fatal.

Or so I believed.

I believed we had been fired strong.
Kiln-set.
Unbreakable.
Because I held you
the way a pot holds water:
quietly, without question,
trusting what was poured into me.

I thought I was held the same way.

Then came the day
I didn’t know I should be afraid of.

There was no thunder. Nothing dramatic. No shattering.

Just a hairline fracture
spreading beneath the glaze
while I stood there smiling,
unaware I had already been set too close to the edge.

There were three of us.
Laughter — but wrong.
Sharp around the edges.
I remember standing still.
Not understanding.

And then the sound.

A small metallic click.
A clean, deliberate snip.

So light. So quick. So irreversible.
A piece of my ponytail
in someone else’s hand.

Laughter. Not mine.

I didn’t shatter loudly.
Clay doesn’t always do that.
Sometimes it just cracks inward
and keeps its shape.

You were standing there.
Not between me and harm.
Not guarding.
Just watching.

It wasn’t the hair.
It was the shift.

The realization
that I had mistaken proximity for protection.
That the hands I thought would steady me
could also let me tilt without reaching.

That was the day
the glaze split.

Sudden. Unexpected. Public.

I remember touching the uneven ends later,
as if I could press them back into place,
as if clay could be reshaped after firing.

And the worst part —
I never knew why.

If I’m honest,
I still don’t.

But sometimes,
when I turn myself toward old memories,
I hear it again —
that small, harmless sound.

And I know
that was the moment
I stopped being displayed beside you
and started standing
a little closer to the edge.


P.S: I LOVE THIS BUT IT IS EXCEEDING THE LIMIT FR A CONTEST AND NOW I HAVE TO CUT IT SHORT AAAAAAAGHH.