Shatter Me

Shatter Me

Break me down into tiny, dangerous pieces -
a hundred reflective shards of glittering grief.

The first time life destroyed me, it felt like an accident -
a mistake I managed to survive.
I brushed all the scraps into a delicate pile,
and carefully arranged them back in their order.
I’m still whole, I assured myself and hoped it was true.
A little cracked, in some places, but still whole.

Shatter me, once again…
a second time through feels harder to recover from.
I lost some things - naivete and innocence - this time around,
replaced by more discernment and caution.
They fit themselves, neatly, into the newest version of me.
But, alas, I was not protected.

Shatter me a third time…
Is it me? Am I the reason this keeps happening?
I’m more afraid some pieces might be missing, this time -
ten thousand tiny shards of me
scattered to dark, distant places.
It was the tenderest parts of me that broke the most -
so fragile I worried perhaps they’d been lost, completely.

I’ve put myself together before.
I stood up straight, eventually.
Ordered differently -
the variable pieces of me mis-matched in a new arrangement -
but, I’ve found the pieces, all still there.
I’ll try to remember where they go…

Shatter me, once more…
it’s beginning to feel familiar, now -
this process of reordering myself -
of reassembling the fragments -
of finding myself assured, again, that,
Yes. All of me is still there,
even if I can’t see it all, right now.

My tenderness…
My compassion…

My courage…
My softness…
My daring…

My brazen…
My fortitude…
My generosity…

My ability to forgive…
to let go…
to be open…
to love…

to see and be seen…
to take chances…
to be kind…

to heal…
to transform…
to love…
to always remember who I am…

Yes - shatter me, again and again.
Shatter me as many times as you like.
The transformation scares me, sometimes.
It’s ugly, and it hurts.
But, all of my sharp edges have been smoothed over
and there is also peace and beauty
in accepting the evolution I cannot control.

I reorder myself more easily now.
Swirling over myself with each wave that comes; I change.
I’m softer now, but also deeper.
It will hurt, but not forever, and in the end
I’ll always know how to put myself back together.
The more tender pieces may elude me, at times,
but they’re always there, hidden safely under leaves, for me to find.

Break down the pieces of who I am so many times
that I finally realize,
I was never meant to stay in one piece.
My shape was always meant to change -
to shift with the tides of life,
forming around what’s gifted to me,
and again, around the memories of what’s gone.

Shatter me until I become sand -
shatter me until the pieces of my heart are reduced to
all their individual pieces -
so many of them -
free-flowing, strong, and solid,
and still soft enough to hold a footprint.

I’m not a broken thing.
I’m something altogether new.
The pieces of me wash, back and forth,
over each other and across -
expansive and wider than before.
Still whole, but free-er -
a million, tiny, moving particles -
unconfined from a single, stoic, grasping shape,
now, covering entire stretches of beach.

Shatter me enough times to understand the lesson:
Nothing ever breaks the sand.