He always said what he loved about me most.
Was how nothing could phase me.
How I could go anywhere by myself.
That was good enough.
That I knew how to give exactly what was needed.
I could just do it without being told.
How I was an unstoppable force.
One that wouldn't bow to anyone.
So strong that nothing could penetrate me.
He didn't know how wrong he was.
And then he saw it.
The crack.
As if I had been hiding it from him all along.
It's not my fault when you put me on a pedestal.
Create me into an immortal giant.
It's not fair when you create this picture of me.
And then throw a tantrum
Because you find the flaw
In a masterpiece that YOU created.
The crack born of the weight of your expectations.
Just underneath his favorite piece of me
is my least favorite part of myself.
It's the one I always loathed.
He made it pretty.
Had faith in its strength.
Put it into the storm.
Forgot to see it teetering.
Then screamed when it broke.
He can see how deep it ran.
The crack.
Born of the weight of all the expectations.
The pressure to be perfect
When I didn't even know what perfect meant.
I'm not what he thought I was.
I'm not what he thinks now.
And he has to know.
I can be shattered.
But I know how to pick up the important pieces
And I know how to fill the holes.
I can fall.
But I know how to crawl
When my feet give out.
I can hurt.
But I know how beauty comes from pain.
The thousand stabs of each shard
That I have been cracked into
Made me what I am today.
It made me hard.
It made me brittle.
It made me scared.
But it made me resilient.
He assumes that when I shatter
My world ends.
And he has to know.
He's wrong.
He has to know.
If he knew the truth
It would all be different now.
I stand on my own feet.
I can walk alone.
But that won't ever stop the pain
Of a million shards of clay
Pricking my poor, bruised heart.
He has to know.
You MUST know.
You are wrong.
