I don’t know when I forgot how to solve puzzles

    I remember the pieces fitting together so perfectly

the notches slipping

      the colors blending

it’s so hard now

      to hold myself together

            I feel like my notches have split off

and my pieces don’t fit

each broken notch letting the wood of a table sneak through

          bare pine where there should be color

*Puzzle Pieces was a second-round finalist (<9% of submissions) for the 2023 Brid Port Poetry Prize

An International Poetry Competition in the UK

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