Do not pick broken things up.  Your bare, un-callused hands should not reach out and caress.  Do not try to glue the pieces back together.  You will end up bleeding.  You will end up with a leaking, half-assed excuse for a cup.  You will be burned by the hot glue gun.  Do not pick broken things up.  Do not let your hands, your soft untainted hands, be torn up.  If you cannot stand to see the broken shards lying on the ground before you, you may sweep us up, but remember, do not touch.  See, when glass breaks, it shatters and the pieces spread out and some break so small they can never be found, they have become dust.  When you try to glue broken glass back together there will always be cracks, there will always be missing pieces, there will always be blood.  This is a messy endeavor, so please, do not pick broken things up. 

But I’ve never been one to listen to my own advice.  I’ll take the bleeding hands, the glue-gun burns.  When the cracked cup leaks I’ll rip off my own chipped piece just to patch it up.  I’ve never been one for new and shiny, always preferred the torn and tattered, hell, I’ve been wearing torn up hand me downs since day one.  There’s something nice about running your fingers over ridges and miss-matched stitches feeling the moments someone took the time to love something enough to patch it up.                                                       I’ve always preferred a little broken to my happy because my happy will always be a little broken.  See that chipped up cup goes a lot better with my exterior than some cold, untainted, plain, new porcelain mug.  So no, I won’t sweep the broken pieces out of sight, under the rug.  I will succumb to the cuts and barehanded carry them to the table to the glue and the space pieces.  I will ask “do you need this?” Some cups want to stay shattered but if you accept I promise to pop the temperamental piece back in every time in pops out.  I’ll sip you like hot morning coffee and what a burning drip slips through the cracks I will not jump back, I will not switch mugs.  I’ll add it to my collection of my own cracks and proceed to fill you right back up.