This collection serves as an introduction to both The Broken Teacup and its creators. Get a feel for the kind of art we make and want to share.
Also, both of us wrote these pieces completely separately and hadn’t realized how similar the themes were until we put this together. Crazy how that worked out.
Enjoy!
Aleesia Aley & K.C. Snyder
I Feel Stuck by Aleesia Aley
I feel as if I am not moving in life as fast as others
They say that everyone has their own pace
I can’t help but compare myself
I feel stuck
I feel as if I cannot get out of the trenches of my mind
Why am I not where they are?
I can’t help but feel like im being left behind
I feel stuck
I feel as if the cages on my mental, grip me back deeper
Take these, they will help
I can’t help but wonder if I will ever not feel this way
I feel stuck
I feel as if I cannot move from my bed as I rot, breaking down the springs
Just get up and do something
I can’t help but wonder if I can
I feel stuck
WAHH I’M STUCK IN THE MUD by K.C. Snyder
my friends are moving on through that sun-drenched path ahead but i am still here, knee deep in quicksand tugging me
down
down
down
ever so gently
i cry for help but they don’t hear it
pleading drowned out by tomorrow’s plans and giggles at inside jokes i only half-remember
i search the mud, it’s halfway up my thighs now, thick and full of useless things—
crumpled old receipts
unfinished job applications
discarded bolts from an ikea shelf
me, my dirty hands
i stop calling out for someone to hear me
i don’t want to bring them into this mess, the muck pulling me under
but some small animal inside me
maybe a field mouse
the frog stuck in my throat croaks
please don’t leave
Grounding Technique by Aleesia Aley
Five things I can see
The glow of the computer screen as I sit,
Waiting for the creativity to flow out of me
Have I changed?
Four things I can touch
The co-
-ns-
-te-
-ll-
-at-
-io-
-ns-
of bumps across my face,
The l
i
n
e
s that find shelter on my stomach and thighs
How could I let myself get like this?
Three things I can hear
The music flowing through my ears,
Usually something sad
Why do I do this to myself?
Two things I can smell
The litter box at the foot of the bed,
My cat sitting next to me
Am I failing him?
One thing I can taste
The chemicals stilling on my tongue,
From who knows what
Is it ever going to get better?
Miscellaneous by K.C. Snyder
I see a strand of loose hair in the sink. A bottle of dye,
of soap, of aloe. A foggy ghost of a face in the mirror.
Touch dripping hair, the counter, the wall,
the soft, damp towel discarded on the floor.
Hear the laundry running, the faucet dripping,
my heartbeat going — I am, I am, I am.
Old Spice deodorant, the perfume she bought
for my birthday (before she left)
and sticky, sickly-sweet mint toothpaste.
It never goes away, this feeling, now does it
Once Alive, Now Dead by Aleesia Aley
The flower that sits in my palm is dead. The once alive plant that fed and housed the bugs that crawled on the ground was now falling apart between my fingertips. Couldn’t have been any bigger than a paper clip, wilting and curved to the right as it lies in my hand. The flower with four once curved leaves now sits dead and lifeless in my palm, the roughness of my hand breaking the fragile pieces, leaving them as some sort of unmemorable dust. The once green clover now adventuring onto nourishing the earth with its remains.
The tiny stem that reaches out from petals is brown like a cinnamon stick that would go into a warm bowl of pumpkin soup that my mother would make on a fall afternoon. The tiny stem being a reminder of my own body as it grew, once being much smaller than I am now, once being a child who didn’t know any better. The once strong willed stem, still trying to keep the petals high, like holding onto a singular thread waiting to be torn down.
The leaves are as light as the puff pastry that my grandmother would roll on cold winter nights while the snow outside gradually accumulated to great lengths. The white sheets covering the dying grass below. The once vibrant color of green has been replaced with a withering brown, pieces breaking as the petals are touched, as the petals are stepped on, as the petals are damaged. The curvature now replaced with broken edges, the pieces no longer being together, no longer feeling the safety of having the rest of itself. Losing pieces as every minute passes.
The veins that protrude out of the leaves are comparable to those that cover my body, although on the petals they are brown, on my skin they are bright blue and spidery. The veins that pushed nutrients out to the rest of the plant now lay vacant, used for nothing but decoration. The veins that are still remaining on the broken leaves are begging to be younger, to be the sustenance that once held its home together and strong.
The spots on the petals remind me of the beauty marks that cover my pale skin all over, the marks that make me distinctive and unique. The lines on the petals remind me of the wrinkles that cover my pale skin, the lines that are set to be a reminder of the decades of living. The decades of being a provider, the decades of dehydration, the decades of being a safety net.
There is something different and comparable about this flower, although it looks brittle and fragile, it was once a strong willed, vibrant flower. The flower that was more than just a microscopic part of our earth. The reason for oxygen, for life, for nature to continue on its path. The flower that once was young and budding, the flower that is sticking together, making sure to hold on as long as it can, as long as nature shall allow it.
Worm Killer by K.C. Snyder
Today I screamed at an inch worm on my thigh and nearly drove my car into the meridian on the highway because I thought, very rationally, that something so small could kill me. To be fair, I thought it was a leech for that split second my hands jerked off the wheel and slapped it from my lap. My tires buzzed with anxiety and groaned onto the rumble strip. Hey! They said. Maybe you should look forward instead of down! And I did for a moment, correcting my trajectory, glancing at the road sign I couldn’t even read because I had forgotten to wear my glasses yet again. But once my tires were straight, once the road stopped grumbling at me to wake up, I looked down. To my horror, that inky little bugger was sitting next to me in the driver’s seat just to the right of my violated thigh. If you want to be in charge of the vehicle, I thought, please, be my guest. Just don’t touch me again.
I was serious too. I would jump out of the seat belt and through the window of the sedan going 83 miles per hour if it meant no bug would ever even think about touching me ever again. I mean, I would also probably die—skin stripped from fractured bones, blood dramatically splattered on the pavement and grass—but that was a different problem. The worm lifted the top half of its body, its little fingers reaching out to me, and I yelped. Oh God. I thought. This is it. I have to jump.
There were no cars behind me for a long while. No one else would get hurt. The sun would keep on casting its delicate morning light and the Earth would keep spinning while I suffered because of a worm. But some deity decided to answer my prayer before I had the chance to unbuckle my seatbelt, because the worm turned around. It inched away from me, toward the cupholders, toward my pale blue water bottle and caseless iPhone 14 and old gum wrappers and whatever else was stashed haphazardly in my center console. Relief flooded my senses, pounded in my eyes, loosened the crick in my neck I had woken up with. War is over! He is retreating! I can drive in peace now!
But I didn’t drive in peace. I spent half of the time looking at the road, the other half at the worm now squirming up my dashboard. I was wary. I would not be caught defenseless again. The sun in my eyes, the worm rooting through my poor old car, I pulled off of my exit to a red light. Now was my chance. I scrounged the floor of the backseat with one hand and found a piece of paper. I coaxed the ignorant creature onto a receipt from my last visit to the optometrist and shook him out of the vehicle. Why crush a bug and be so directly responsible for its demise when you can fling it out the window and let gravity do the rest? Why give it a quick death when you can subject it to torture for subjecting you to the torture of finding it slinking up your leg? The light turned green and I hit the gas.
The Broken Teacup 