Cracked
I wrote the poem Cracked before making my Cracked Pots.
(Pictured to the left)
I often wonder how much what I write is subconsciously influenced by what I make. The following poem and the pictured pot seem a perfect match.
When we crack the outer shell of confidence and self acceptance
We leave tiny little lines of doubt on a person.
These cracks are spaces where poison enters and begins to tear at the insides.
Once harm gets inside the cracks, it weakens the person within and makes them ripe for breaking.
Why do we feel the need to crack open other people?
The insides that are damaged are not even visible to you and me.
Our hard words, cutting remarks, insults, and mallets of shaping, can make one fall to pieces.
What gives us the right to try to fix through breaking?
If damaging a person goes too far a person becomes a pile of shards.
Though these shards may contain beauty, they cannot match the beauty of the once complete vessel.
Can we glue a broken person back together? It is far easier to protect from damage than to repair.
Unfortunately most humans ignore the broken piles of people left behind in our society.
Humans are rarely capable of being put back together by the one who did the harm.
When this is attempted the damaged person is assembled in the image of the person who damaged them.
Their individual beauty and value is lost in the forcing of pieces back together.
A persons value is too often viewed as needing reshaping, by a person who is incapable of vision.
It takes kind people who did not participate in harming the broken, to help reassemble the broken mind.
The broken pieces must be carefully matched in order to be build back up.
The person being reassembled must be reunited in thought and vision of the person they once were.
They must be loved and accepted as the person they truly are.
We are social beings whether we like it or not, and we must learn to see ourselves as valuable.
It is an absolute must that we experience others loving us.
If we lack love of self and love from others, when damaging words come, we will find ourselves cracked.
A persons community can help repair the cracks before more damage is done.
To live in a world that claims to value individualism yet fails to see the beauty of the individual is a contradiction.
If one does not protect those who are different from self, it is conformity that is valued, not the individual.
Our world is full of broken people, who have been continuously reassembled into what others want them to be.
Only we can keep future generations from this damaging reoccurrence.
