Mutilated

We are all of us beautiful and broken

Shattered in bits and tiny pieces

Staining the carpets with weeping red drops

From the thousands of tiny, criss-cross marks

On our soles

Where the bits of brokenness

Bit into our eager flesh.

Each fragment of our best selves

A ragged edge, a remnant of wholeness,

A delusion we played at as naïve children

When we still believed.

We are all of us broken and beautiful

Particles of the people we pray to be

Each of us begging the universe to

Send us a sign, to let us know

That we are not

Alone.

And yet, here we are,

All of us, each of us,

Just as fractured and mangled as the others

Feeling defective, damaged, demolished.

In pieces.

Pulverized.