Broken
How does one know when they are broken?
When being functional isn't the same as being whole.
When the cracks, chips, and fissures are on the inside.
When every action becomes a façade.
If I am able to drive,
To stand in line at the post office,
To fulfill my duties 8 to 5,
To not yell and throw things,
Am I healthy?
When the sickness is within
Eating at my core
Until I am a hollowed out cottonwood in the winter
With no indication that I am dead
Until Spring comes and no buds grow
Or until the winds push me down
And all the world can see my rotted heart.
When I can smile and laugh and act happy
In every way that is socially acceptable
But it is all within the program.
Stimulus response.
Stimulus response.
Then who is to say that I am not a man but a robot?
Who is to say the tree is not alive if they do not cut it down?
To find that nothing can be told about me by looking inside,
Since even my rings are gone.
And nothing remains but darkness and void.
Comments
A limb that is broken becomes useless and sinks to the ground. It can't be used. A person that is broken no longer thinks, and turns away from the humanity he was born with. Feelings become useless and dead. A person who can still express anguish or joy, or whatever lies in between, is not broken.
What you describe is a person in danger of being beaten, not broken.
And that tree, by the way, is lovely. I'd draw it, in fact.
When sadness is embraced it often loosens its grip on the soul.
much love, xo
Al