Glass
Glass as a material whose force lies in two contradictory properties - visible transparency and inevitable breakability. In Taylor's writing glass typically appears in the heart-as-glass register, with the figure's fragility made material; the image carries the doubled charge of being seen-through (vulnerability) and being dropped (irreparable loss).
Glass carries the charge of a thing whose strength and weakness are the same property - what is precious about it is what makes it impossible to keep. Across the catalogue the image collapses the distance between a person and an object: when a heart is glass, breaking is no longer metaphorical.
Appears in 2 songs
“And when I break, it's in a million pieces”
Glass as the material of the mirror ball, something beautiful precisely because of its fragility and brokenness. The shattered edges that glisten represent how the performer's pain and fractures are what make her compelling to watch.
“Your heart was glass, I dropped it Champagne problems”
The man's heart is fragile, made of glass, and the narrator carelessly breaks it, fragility meets the casual destruction of refusal.