Foraging For The Future

The last remains of what was whole

Lay on the ground

Beckoning her to pick them up.

Most of what was hers were gone.

Some pain remained.

We are yours! - they cried.

They lay down in the plain sight of her -

That was their place.

Nowhere to go, they faithfully stayed.

She looked around for something else -

Anything that might resemble

A part of what was now destroyed.

She saw the pain had always been there

Even when her life was whole -

They had been out of sight, just well-hidden.

Balanced by those who had left her side,

They had been hers but had been still.

They had lived undercover, silently feeding.

With each of the strings now pulled away,

What was whole is now threadbare,

These painful remains now come to the fore

She gathered them and clenched them tight

With nothing else to hold on to.

They were the last ones to stay by her side.

She wanted to build the whole again

Using these as building blocks -

From parts comes the whole, from pain comes gain

They were small pieces, but not building blocks,

They were shards of glass which tore her apart -

Her hands were bleeding, her hope streaming out...

Yet she foraged and put together a new whole self -

She built it with the only thing she found

It was now made of glass, it was now made of pain!

It was made of glass, yet it would not break,

For it had no dependence on any other force.

She was an atomic whole, she was pure pain, but she was here to stay...