Broken and Still Choosing (Resilient)

Lyrics

Here are your pieces.
All of them.
Counted.
The day was a Tuesday. The floor was cold.

I remember the sound.
Not a crash, more of a sharp sigh.
And then the silence that came after.
I gathered you up from the linoleum.
The sharp edges promised to cut,
but I was careful.
I washed each piece in the sink,
under warm water.
Your blue glaze, now a map of fractures.
A geography of the fall.

This is not hiding the damage.
This is the work.
Broken, and still choosing.
We trace the lines where the light gets in.
I mix the gold with the lacquer.
We are broken, and still choosing.
To be more beautiful for having been broken.

The brush is fine as a cat's whisker.
I hold my breath.
Painting the dark resin along the wound.
Joining one edge to another.
This takes patience.
This takes a steady hand.
This is not the work of a single afternoon.
This is the work of believing
that what is shattered
can be whole again. Not the same, but whole.

This is not hiding the damage.
This is the work.
Broken, and still choosing.
We trace the lines where the light gets in.
I mix the gold with the lacquer.
We are broken, and still choosing.
To be more beautiful for having been broken.

They say to throw away the shards.
They say start again.
But they don’t understand the freedom.
The last freedom.
To choose what to do with the pieces.
To say this history is my history.
This scar is where the story turns.

I hold you up to the window.
The winter sun catches the gold seams.
A new map. A testament.
Whole.
And choosing.
Still choosing.