May 19, 2014October 13, 2019 Kelsey Horton

You Are Not A Broken Toy

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You are not a broken toy.

Your arm is not imprinted with the bite marks of a brother or friend or dog or frazzled mother.

You are not plastic.

You were not manufactured on a nameless assembly line.

You are not abandoned in a spider-haunted corner of a child’s closet, a casualty of the newest talking gadget.

You are not tattered, shredded, being held up to the light to see if you belong in the garbage.

You do not have batteries that whirl and grind in alarming noises.

There is nothing broken about you.

You do not need one more workshop, one more degree, one more drink, one more chance to prove yourself this time.

You do not need to hammer yourself into a mold.

You do not need to tone it down.

You do not need to act out the desires of your parents.

You do not need to find your other half because you are already whole.

You do not need to fix any qualities of yourself because

you do not need fixing.

You have tendencies that wreak havoc on your life.

You create unconsciously, you sabotage opportunities, you obliterate relationships.

Maybe you people-please. Maybe you are always the victim in the stories you tell.

Maybe you exert control through codependency or chronic lateness or pulling out other people’s eyelashes.

Maybe you engage in hopeless arguments on internet chat boards, arguments that leave you drained, cynical, and clinging with your last dying breath to Being Right.

Maybe your deepest belief of “I’m not important” runs every nanosecond of your life, but you don’t realize it because you’re so focused on maintaining your colorful bravado.

Maybe you settle for a life half-lived because you don’t believe you deserve anything more.

These tendencies need noticing, cajoling, comforting.

They need heard. They need witnessed.

They feel so soft and cozy in the darkness that you hardly see them.

You say “It’s just how I am” because that’s easier than peering into the terrifying well of transformation.

You say “I need to fix this about myself” because that’s easier than acknowledging the explosive light of your being,

the light that transforms worlds,

that turns young lawyers into Nelson Mandelas and young preachers into Martin Luther Kings,

that incites wild miracles,

that breaks your life open to a shattering prismatic confetti Universe of

spontaneity and opportunity and possibility and hope.

You keep your light hidden under muddy layers of victimization and self-hatred,

secrecy and jealousy,

tepid promises to Fix It someday.

Advertisements want you to Fix It.

Your parents want you to Fix It.

Your teachers want you to Fix It.

Your boyfriend wants you to Fix It.

Except you were never really broken.

You were just hiding.

PS If you loved this post — you’ll love Robot Coconut Trees, my empowering book about creative writing. Check it out here!