I am made of sticks and stones.

I rebuilt myself from those

I found

Strewn about the kitchen floor,

Remnants of your drunken tirades.

My bones felt hollow

When I learned that yours

Were made from cancer.

I collected the shattered remnants of my family.

Glued them together with

Spit and

Mud.

My creations came undone

Once they learned to stand for themselves.

I come home at night

To a man who loves me,

A man who still misses me when I'm gone

After two years of seeing each other nearly every day,

And I wonder

“Would my mother see this and feel happily for me,

Or think of how you

robbed her

of this chance—

This blessing.”

I am made of moss and lichen.

My roots run shallow,

But spread far and wide.

I breathe through the rain,

And reach outward in an attempt to ground myself,

To find an unbroken place that I can call “home.”

In the process

I find my boundaries expanding,

My limits stretching and disappearing

With each new growth.

I worry that, one day, I’ll end up

Like you.

I worry that, one day, my lover

Will look into my eyes

And feel fear,

And sorrow

Over the man he once thought he could fix with love.

But I need no fixing:

There are worse things than being broken,

And few things better than

Being rebuilt.

And I have been rebuilt

With spit

And mud

And tears and rain and wine and whiskey and a thousand wet kisses and ten thousand warm hugs.

And I have learned to stand

For myself.