To My Adversary:

You do not frighten me anymore.
I was not born to be weak nor young forever and I have grown like a vine upon an ancient tree, and in what you left me with, I have succeeded.

I have succeeded in finding a place for this broken body.
I have found a frame of porcelain and glass with which to carry my burdens.
Porcelain and glass.
But unbreakable.

I have porcelain skin. It scrapes along hard surfaces, leaving scars in its wake. Some scars take the shape of your name, and this is when I cry.

My eyes are made of glass. I do not hide anymore. You may look straight through me and find what matters, but that is a decision only you may make.

Do I matter?

She asks, as she runs into the sun.

Do I matter?

It is a staccato rhythm, no longer in tune with her heart but rather her feet, her broken, bloodied, blistered big feet. DoImatterdoImatterdoImatter, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum.

The rhythm pounds away at immovable dirt, never reaching or grasping the sunlit horizon. It is a harness, and they are reins, and it takes one great breath of fresh air, and then you find that your feet grow too weary, and then you find that you have sunken to your knees, and you are gasping for air, and you have nothing, and you have NOTHING

and then it eases like summer rain.

She can't find the breath to cry.
Instead she does the next best thing.
She counts on her fingers those that have wronged her.
One, two, three.
They dance on her fingernails as she forgives them.
One, two, three.

I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.

Porcelain and glass.
I am unbreakable.