Oh pitcher, you are made by a graceful hand, and I can’t decide which would be more lovely: the hand that created you, or the water that would pour from your lip. I have picked you up and held you in my own hands, roughened by rocks climbed, and splintered by wood shaped, for the safety of the clients of Genesee Valley OLC. 

You need a home, but is mine the one? My horse-stall at the Outdoor Learning Center is little more shelter from the elements than this flimsy tent stall at the Baltimore Arts Festival, and the sun might scar the purple glazing of your neck. How would I protect your delicately curved handle, upon which a string tag twists a price in mockery? Thirty five dollars is almost ten-percent of my monthly pay, and I have no running water. Would you be satisfied with filling from a duck pond? Your majesty is rival to that Canada Goose that threatened me when I strayed close to her nest? How could I protect you, if it were to dive-bomb while I cradled you in my arms;  your shell encasing my own hopes for the future? 

If another takes you home, you will not fill from a pump and be carried across the uneven swale-wet ground risking a stumble on the white moon-reflecting rock. They would not ask you to share a shelf with a mouse who has babies in their underwear box, I suspect. Their friends would not ogle you, and wonder how much beer you could hold. But would they long for you like I do? Would you symbolize the elegance missing from the life of a man who came in second place for days without a shower? 

No. 

The water I do not drink from you will be sweet, and perfect, and cool on my lips forever. You will be a fantasy of perfection; a cup that I let pass through cowardice. I will protect you and myself by giving your protection to another. I will put you down; back down on the folding table, and walk away, leaving you full of what I am losing with this choice.