People cannot be broken

Nevertheless, there will come a time

When you meet someone who will make you feel like

Hundreds of pieces of pottery

Scattered on the ground

And then trampled upon

Until you are indistinguishable from the dirt

 

It will start with something like

The two of you cuddled up on the same chair

Outside on your porch at 1am

While the cold December air bites at your skin

They will tell you that they love you for the first time

And you will feel so

Warm

 

But every beginning has an ending

And it won’t be a “let’s just be friends”

Or a “I care about you, but it just can’t work”

No, it will be screaming at a brick wall and cuts on your thighs and a bottle full of bleach tempting you to drink it

It will be uncaring eyes and cold words

As you beg them not to go

And it will come as suddenly as getting hit by a truck

The difference being that the truck would be

Much more pleasant

 

And you will feel broken

 

But people cannot be broken

Because people

Are not pottery

People are the clay

Moldable, changeable, shapeable

And yes, crushable

But no less able to build yourself back up

To shape and sculpt yourself into something even better than before

LIke the clay spinning round and round on the wheel

You are never a finished product

Always a work in progress

And just as a painting an artist paints over their old picture

Is made no less beautiful by the layers underneath it

You too will shape yourself into someone

Who is never lesser

No matter how you were crushed before

 

You cannot be broken

You cannot be worthless

Even when you feel the most damaged

If you can be made into something beautiful later

You must be worth something now

 

You are clay

And you cannot be broken