Tired of Being Broken.

I'm full of missing pieces
Windowpanes once whole now only shattered glass
Rebuilding seeming nearly impossible
Holes too big to fill in

I'm tired of being broken.
And I can write beautiful things that give heartbeat to ink
Leaving footprints on arteries and pages alike
About how broken is beautiful
And how you can only make a mosaic if you start with pieces
And that's still true.
I still believe that beauty can come from the pain inside

But I'm tired of being broken.

I'm tired of the way people look at you when you have missing pieces
So condescending, looking down their noses as though they are any better
Judgment blocking vision, the log obscuring the splinter
'Just pull yourself together!' 'Cheer up!' 'Smile like you mean it!'

Can't you see I'm trying?

All you see is the outside, though,
The parts that I'm choosing to let you see
But that's really not all of the story
There is hurt

Here

That you can't see

You can't see the day he put a hand to me
Or the day he screamed in my face.
You don't see the canyon that formed in my soul the day she said those things
Or the way the betrayal, betrayal, betrayal Ah.
Soaked in beneath my skin

Yours may be thick, but mine is not.

You can't see the struggle it takes for me to force my legs out from the covers
Every day, every day, every day,
The way food repulses after so long because calories equal fat cells
Right?
I kept it all to myself for a long, long, time.
I fought with no one helping me at all.
You didn't see that one either.

He betrayed me. Of all the people in the world, it wasn't supposed to be him.
But it was.

You can't see the way fear that stretched over years with no reprieve
Put a lot of wear on this heart of mine
Or the way that people only saw me when something went wrong.
You can't see the muddy footprints that I've traced a billion times each
Left by all of those people who just walked away

Why did they walk away? What did I do wrong?

You don't see the millions of stitch marks from where I've patched
The clumsily scotch-taped, elmer's glued, band-aid coated thing
Lying beneath my rib cage, aching with each measured pulse

You don't see that. You don't.

You just see the half-hearted smile
The thin line I put all of my effort into turning into crescent moon
Just so that you won't think I'm so empty
And most of the time, you believe me
Or at least pretend to so you don't have to ask questions
But you still see my eyes

Can't you see me screaming?

I'm tired of being broken
And I'm trying to move toward piecing this heart back together again
Sweeping shards of glass to be puzzle-pieced together
It just takes time, though.

It takes moment after moment,
Peeling back the temporarily fixed layers
Exposing the rawness of the ache that still exists
Yes, even after this long,
And it takes courage.

You can't see that either.

But just because you see it,
Doesn't mean it isn't real
Isn't true.

I'm full of missing pieces,
But I'm learning to fit together new ones
Learning to let the light in where holes still remain

Let this heartbeat flowing through my fingers
Match my pulse with yours

Take my hand
Brokenness transforming, finding how to be filled once again
Come, I'll show you
But you'll have to open your eyes, accept your place

Because with all the judgment clouding your lens to the world,

You can't see that.

-S.