Shards of Me

In the quiet fracture of dawn,
I wake to the sound of splintering—
not glass, not bone, but the soft architecture
of a heart that once held symphonies.
Broken, they say, like a vase toppled
by careless hands, shards glinting
in the indifferent light, accusing
the floor of its unyielding stone.

I gather them, these jagged edges,
fingers bleeding from the effort,
tracing the curves where wholeness
once curved like a lover’s promise.
Each piece whispers its grievance:
the laughter that cracked under weight,
the trust that shattered like ice
on a winter’s forgotten pond.

But oh, the alchemy of ruin—
how breakage births a mosaic,
iridescent under sun’s reluctant gaze.
I press the fragments into new patterns,
not mended, but remade:
a wing from a fallen feather,
a bridge from the bones of bridges burned.
What was vessel becomes constellation,
scattered stars mapping paths unseen.

And in the mending, I learn the lie
of unbroken lives—polished illusions
that hide the fractures we all bear.
Broken is not the end, but the exhale,
the space where light slips through
the seams, illuminating what endures:
the stubborn pulse, the defiant bloom
from soil turned by storm’s cruel plow.

So let me be broken, then—
a kaleidoscope of wounds and wonders,
turning in the wind, refracting
the world’s sharp edges into rainbows.
For in the breaking, I am boundless,
a river carving canyons from stone,
eternal in my flow, unbroken
in the beautiful art of becoming.