The Anthem of Her Pieces

She was broken —
and broken is still beautiful.
She didn’t need to be put back together.
She was only happy to finally be.
Though she was a thousand shining fragments,
a mosaic only her soul could read,
it was exactly as it should be.

As a child, she tunneled into the dirt,
building cities where no one could find her.
She carved safety into the earth with tiny hands,
learning early that peace lived underground.

As a woman, she walks into the gym like a battlefield —
not to impress the crowd,
but to face the mirror.
She dresses her body in courage,
meets her own eyes,
and whispers to the girl who once stopped looking:
“I see you. You are enough.”

She lets herself descend,
nine feet down,
to rest where no voices can tug at her.
She doesn’t fear the quiet —
she cradles it.
Because she knows:
from that stillness, she always rises.

She doesn’t live to perform.
She doesn’t live to please.
She lives to live.
And that is holy.

So when they stare,
when they misunderstand,
when they wish she were different,
she only smiles inside.
Because she knows the truth:

She is many pieces,
but all are hers.
And every time she gathers them,
she remembers:
every piece that made her,
made her her.