Learning To Love My Broken Pieces

I wish I could wash you off as easily as I can the food from this plate.
I wish I could submerge myself in the depths
And finally return back to myself once I emerge.

I wish the soap caressing my body didn’t sting;
I wish the moisture could break through the tough exterior coating all of these limbs.
I wish it wasn’t so easy to cry here.
Bathing myself in my own tears,
But never feeling any cleaner.

I wish the water could renew me.
I wonder what it must feel like to be brand new.
I wonder what it must be like to know that in just one moment you can go from drowning to dry.
Like it never even happened.
Like no one ever touched you.
Or hurt you.
Or called you out of your name.
I wonder what it must feel like to know you can be fixed.
To know that you can always come back once you have been lost.
I wonder what it looks like on the other side of this pain.

I fear I am less like the plate being gently scrubbed clean
And more like the chipped coffee mug in the back corner of the cabinet.
I used to be someone once.
Before they convinced me I was less than.
Before he broke me.
Again and again and again.
I used to be his favorite.
The one he couldn’t imagine his life without.
The one he thought he could never get mad at.
The reliable one, always waiting with open arms and an open heart, despite it all.
The one he always chose and swore he always would.

Until the day he didn’t.
Until the day he chose someone else.
Until the day he reached for a different mug
And poured everything he had into a different cup.

So I waited.
And I hoped.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Until someone so much closer takes your place.
Until one day he realizes that he doesn’t even actually like coffee,
And then you never see him again.

You just stay there.
Silent.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Wishing.
That one day he will remember everything you gave him.
That one day he will remember how much he cared.
How much he loved your imperfections and the chipped, damaged parts.
He never saw you as broken before.

So, what changed?

Did he meet someone who he could finally make clean?
Someone who knew how to come out of their own darkness without pulling anyone else in with them.
Someone who felt a lot less like drowning and a lot more like hope.
Stability.
Someone who wasn’t bitter.
Or too much.
Someone who helped him find his light instead of his darkness.
Someone he could finally call home.

I always hoped he would be there to patch up my broken pieces,
To keep me safe during the times I could not see my own value.
To save me when I could not save myself.

But I cannot make him love me.
I cannot bring back his craving.
I fear I will always be here waiting
And wondering if anyone will ever make me feel so seen, so special.
If anyone else will ever see my past my broken parts and understand how a few small imperfections do not ruin a person,
They only make them art.

I can only hope that one day, you remember who you are.