Self-Portrait Challenge- We Are All Broken

It has been a strange week, and I am not sure I can, or even want to articulate what that means to me. I see no reason to share the details of my week; however, let me just say that it has been an emotionally challenging week, one that has left me with the realization that we are all broken. Take that sentiment, this photo and the following poem and do with that data what you will.

(This photo was generated here and is one of the many cool sites that manipulate images found at SPC for this week’s challenge. This site is pretty cool- It takes your image and recreates it using text in this case the phrase- we are all broken. But it was kind of a pain in the ass to get it off the web. I finally had to take a screenshot, and it kept freezing up my Firefox! See we really are all broken.)

we are all broken shapes

we are all broken shapes
carrying more than our share
of loss,
scribbled onto torn pages
our shared story

afraid to accept this ache
alone or in groups,
we spiral into traps
set by ourselves.
languishing
like imbalanced echoes
whispered into a microphone

we hide reality from our children
as if we could protect them
from this narrative:
you will hurt
we should teach.

we are all broken shapes
carrying more than our share
of loss.

let me carry your share
till you are ready.