Bouts Of Writing

A testament to the broken(in a way)

(There is an instance where we capture broken things)

Sometimes I look around my room and happen to process a chipped-off piece of glass I salvaged from the bin because it looked pretty and I wonder what use I could possibly have with it. I can't use it at all.

(In general terms, it is simply, useless)

But I still keep it because when I happen to process it, it pleases my eye. It's sharp around the edges and thick, with spider web cracks inside its space. It's shattered, yet whole. It's fragile, yet strong.

(I keep it because its shattered form is pretty)

There's another object I salvaged, this time from the muddied fields of a sports ground. It had been pouring that day, and my clothes were heavy, along with my limbs, but I saw a medal. No ribbon, just the medal, lying quite forlornly in the mud. I felt sorry for it, I suppose, so I pocketed it and promptly forgot about it until my mother asked me why I had an old metal thing in my hoodie pocket when she was about to put it to wash.

(It seemed more forlorn than ever at the prospect of being forgotten)

I took it with a shrug and cleaned it off. Now it's there in my drawer, serving no purpose but comforting me with its existence. It's just there, it's useless and dull, meaningless, but I can't throw it away.

(It feels wrong somehow)

I don't think I've captured them, these broken things, rather I've found them, and I've kept them. But sometimes I look in the mirror after a bad fight with my parents, or a bad school test and my soul seems to seep out of my eyes and pour down my cheeks as a testimony to the fact that I am broken.

(I don't think anyone is whole really)

Because if we were, we would be happy, without conflict, aches, and sadness. I think we lose parts of ourselves along the way and replace them with books, movies, songs, and lost broken things as an unconscious effort to feel as whole as we do before we knew it was even a feeling.

(Because when do we realize we can feel things really?)

You don't need to have undergone some great arduous lifelong trial to be broken. Like different objects have different melting points, different humans have different breaking points. It doesn't make you weak, or sensitive, or dramatic.

(Pay no heed to the words of others. Your feelings are valid)

You are human, you are different. You will break, you will cry, you will feel. And that's okay. Because even if you're broken, even if you think you're useless, someone will find you trampled or discarded, and despite that, will take you gently and take care of you simply because you serve a purpose for them, as selfish as it sounds.

(Because nothing is truly useless or unneeded, it always serves a purpose. Its mere presence might be comforting.)

You matter to them, and they'll keep you. Even if their mother keeps calling you junk, they'll say "No, it's pretty and I want it because if I throw it away I won't get to see how it looks in the sunlight when the rainbows dance in the cracks" and by the time they finish saying that their mother would have left, rolling her eyes.

(So they find a way to keep you anyway)