This Is Me Piecing Myself Back Together

I’ve never been an artist. I cannot draw or paint or make beautiful creations with my hands. This comes with immense irony now that I have been tasked with the most difficult art project known to man: piecing myself back together.

Before you, I was a resilient stained glass masterpiece. I stood tall and beamed with pride at the vibrant colors I radiated over people in my life. Even bystanders were entranced by my light and awestruck by my presence. I’d been handcrafted by generations of love and wisdom. Each person that loved me handpicked a color to paint my blank canvas until all my colors blended seamlessly into the truest form of beauty they had ever seen. Then I met you.

You seemed to admire the masterpiece I’d become until you took a sledgehammer to my core. I stood in horror and watched as the vivacious and lively colors that defined me were shattered and carelessly crushed under the weight of your destruction. The best parts of me that took two decades to craft by loving hands were now in ruins.

I’d convinced myself that you accidentally destroyed me. I never wanted to believe that someone would intentionally demolish the light within me. I saw you picking up pieces and I thought you were attempting to fix the damage you caused. But as soon as I turned my back, you shoved beautifully crafted shards of me into your pockets. You stole pieces of me. Parts of me that my family poured their hearts into and spent a lifetime creating because you never wanted me to be whole again.

It’s taken years to see, but I refuse to let you steal anymore pieces of me. I’m putting myself back together again and although I will be cracked, imperfect, and unable to return to exactly how I was before, I will be more beautiful than I was before I knew the evil that your touch carries. People will gather to admire the once polished stained glass turned mosaic. The colors will lift from the pieces of me in your pockets and return to the masterpiece I’ve become brighter than I was before you recklessly broke me. You will be left with nothing other than glass shards in your pockets and I hope they cut you deep.

I’ve never been an artist, but you’ve forced me to become the greatest damn one imaginable.