here’s another poem (some poems I’ve written and have held b/c I need time to post them or I wait till the time is right and post them):

Stronger at the Broken Pieces: A Story of Loss and Gain

You know I was broken when I hit the ground

The glass jar shattered into pieces

No longer contained in the tight bubble of comfort

Looking at the broken pieces glistening in the sun

Sunlight reflecting off the pieces, I saw myself for the first time

I was no longer the person encased in a jar of comfort

I finally saw the chance to remake myself

The glass jar broke so I could see the light in me

So that I didn’t need to wrap myself tight in a jar

The light reflected off the pieces making them glitter like stars in the night sky

The glass jar shattered and I was cut and hurt

But at the broken pieces I learned who I truly was

I was not the person encased in the glass jar of society

With the broken pieces, I could shape myself into the person I was meant to be

The glass jar shattered and the world came in with its jagged edges

I tried to grasp the world and was cut and opened up

As I tried to pick up the broken pieces, I was constantly hurt

Yet with each glass that I picked up, I held it up to the sun and watched the light flow in

With each piece I picked up, I came closer to finding my soul

I wouldn’t give anything to be back in that glass jar again

I rather be picking up the broken pieces, finding my strength and shaping who I am

If that glass had not been broken I may never have found how strong I was

If that glass had never been broken, I may not have discovered who I truly was and had the chance to face my fears

If not for the glass jar being broken, I would not have seen the brightness of my soul

I would have been kept encased in an illusion of happiness

We are stronger at the broken parts

The broken parts make us take chances and go down many roads

Sometimes life will give you jagged edges that will poke and prick you

But every rose has its thorns

You can rejoice at the broken pieces glistening in the light as the stars of your soul or you can let the shattered glass reflect shattered hopes and dreams.

It’s your choice

Even at the broken parts, you’re still you

A blackened branch of a tree doesn’t inhibit the tree from growing and touching the sun

The glass that shattered may have many jagged edges much like the tree may have its blackened branches; It is at those places we realize how truly strong we are

Would the glass have cast its light in its many pieces had it not been broken?

The glass jar broke so you could shine your inner light upon the world and allow the inner light of the world in

The glass jar shattered so you could break the illusions of comfort you place on yourself and seek true happiness as you journey through life

Would the branch of the of the tree have given room had not the old diseased died?

We often spend too much time focusing on closed doors that we don’t see an opportunity when it arises

Yet a closed door brings you closer to finding a path because you have found what doesn’t work

It gives you a lesson to help you become better

Let no one tell you who you are, it is you who decide who you are and who you are meant to be

Rather than being unhappy trying to be someone else, be yourself, embrace that inner you and let it shine

Just be yourself, it doesn’t matter if it’s good enough for someone else

For when you are happy being yourself, you can unleash your full potential

Being fragments of someone else just makes you feel worse and gets your eyes away from your purpose

You are a special being, embrace the star in you

The world’s critics may shatter the glass jar, but that means you can be reborn again

They can’t tell you how to pick up the pieces and rebuild them

Only you can decide

So let them laugh and sneer all they want

While you rebuild yourself and become better, they are too busy laughing and jeering to notice

Yes, the broken pieces will hurt

Yes, you may experience fear trying to put them together

But you don’t gain anything just sitting around not sure how to act

Meanwhile the pieces still lie shattered and cut deeper as you work on burying them underneath the dirt

Is that what you really want?

Do you truly want to allow others to control your happiness?

Are you truly going to let them tell you who they think you are?

I was waiting for tomorrow for better things because I was afraid

I was waiting for the future to make itself right someday

But it never happened

Looking at myself, waiting for that someday that never occurs as my dreams kept slipping away

I looked at myself, saw deep in my heart and realized I didn’t want my life to pass me by like this

So look at yourself “Do you like what you see? Is this how it should be?”

Are you waiting for the reason to change?

Why not live life right now before life flashes by and lives you?

And are you terrified by pain, running out of places to hide?

Ask yourself “How can you see the light if you don’t crawl out of the hole?”

The dark isn’t dark as long as one remembers to turn on the light

So turn on your potential today, go for your dreams

Every moment counts since there’s no second try

If today was you last day, would you make you mark by mending who you are

You know it’s never to late to shoot for the stars no matter who you are

So do whatever it takes, let nothing stand in your way, ’cause you count rewind a moment in this life

Take a second and reflect who you are beneath all the labels, see yourself as your soul

Life isn’t a crystal stair

Sometimes you may fall down the steps

Sometimes you may be shattered

But we are stronger at the broken pieces

For all the holes dug in the dirt, we can plant flowers or we can grow weeds

So look at the broken parts of you today

See yourself in them, what can they teach you?

It is through our flaws that we know the adventures of life

So don’t hide the broken parts

Let them rise to the surface and into the light

What piece of the glass jar has kept you back?

Why is that piece so jagged and cutting?

Pay attention to the broken parts of yourself, listen to them

Hold the jagged edges and let the light through them

Maybe there are stubborn ones that won’t let go

Maybe you don’t know where the parts are

Maybe there is an inner bully that has attached itself to you and constantly seeks on trying to break you

In that case, there has been a glass jar that has been wrongly built and there are still jagged edges that try to lodge within you

Imagine yourself getting a hammer and smashing that jar your inner bully has been hiding in

You see the inner bully is a coward; it is afraid of the light

So it wraps itself in a bubble and lodges itself within you

The inner bully’s glass jars are pitch black and when they break they don’t let light in like the jars of your soul

The inner bully gains strength by hiding in these black jars

Yet the inner bully is a true coward

It hides in the black glass because it doesn’t want to be seen

It torments you while it hides

Why let that cowardly inner bully run who you are?

Why not smash its walls and summon a waterfall of light to disintegrate it to pieces?

In a last attempt for its survival, the inner bully shoots strands of black tar trying to latch itself back on

Yet cut those cords with your scissors of light

You saw the inner bully try to save itself with those feeble strands when you shattered the black walls of its safety net didn’t you?

Do you remember what happened when the clear glass jars of your soul shattered?

The broken pieces reflected light and the lid (doors) opened to reveal your true essence

You are stronger at the broken pieces

When you begin to pick them up, don’t let the inner bully in

It is a coward that tries to hide and make you see the darkness in the broken parts

The inner bully can only build black jars with jagged edges

It’s weakness is that it only sees the shadows of who you are

But those shadows are ephemeral, they only outline who you might be

In this way, the inner bully lies awaiting for a soul to give it form

It can’t function on its own

It’s only goal is to wait in the shadows and try to fit itself into your broken pieces

The inner bully has no power unless you let it

You can see the light through the broken pieces or you can allow the shadows to creep in and taint the glass

The inner bully is a true coward, it waits for a target and only spews lies

While your soul goes toward your goals radiating light and truth

Even through the darkest glass, there are pinpricks of light

During the darkest nights, the stars twinkle

You may lose many things in life, your glass may shatter may times but in those broken pieces you find yourself and smash that inner bully!

So live your dreams

Live with the glass half full and not half empty

i get the equations and the process for ap calc, but when a problem changes slightly such as when it involves radicals or trig functions then it gets me. also when there are practical applications such as word problems. i need to work on logical reasoning more and being able to use deductive reasoning to solve problems. i am a good analyzer esp. when it comes to science and science never ceases to amaze me. if you had to pick two words to describe me they would be scientific and spiritual:D i figured out how to string concatenize in java and also created an integer operations program;) “Stronger at the Broken Pieces” was written during the week when my inner bully was relentless and I added to it when I posted it. I think it is one of my favorite poems along with “Immortality”, “Home”, and “Beautiful as the Dawn” (about you) which I posted long ago. I also like “You are my Rock”, “Soul of the Heavens” and “Rebuilding Myself.” If I become a famous scientist, I may publish those poems. Thanks for your comments and yes anita you have a gravitational pull stronger than the sun;) you always keep me spinning around the light, keeping me focused on my goals, keeping me from being lost and sucked down into space. It takes a force stronger than light to pull an object away from a black hole since black holes are remnants of dead massive stars, ten times the mass of our sun. Once you pass the event horizon, there is no hope. i think this is when einstein formed his theory of space-time b/c a clock slows down as it reaches the black hole and when it is millimeter from the black hole time stops and the clock glows red before it disappears. eintein had a quote about how time is not linear, it’s fluid and dynamic. we can’t go back to the past or ahead to the future and if we can’t go either of them, then the present state isn’t really there but ever-changing. it’s like the clock whose time gets slower until it stops, possibly that time could be the present, past or future, but we aren’t sure b/c we haven’t been able to stop time. this is a reason why i disagree with people who say “time flies” b/c it doesn’t. time is a universal constant that can’t be measured, but people make it linear to get a better perception of it. i find physics fascinating as well as biology and chemistry. also if you were to throw yourself into a black hole, your body would elongate as you get closer to the hole, until you pass the event horizon and you slightly widen and fold upon yourself. since matter is condensed in a black hole, the black hole is massive and strong b/c density is related to mass divided by volume. thank you for your comments on my poems, you are a great person:D they made me smile, i especially like this comment : (That force is within you. You have it!), it reminds me of how strong we really are when we look at our souls and not at our physical counterparts.

i agree that the spiritual is the science that hasn’t been explained, but the two are quite related to one another. before science we had religion and philosophy to explain the world. i like philosophy better b/c i admire socrates and plato. socrates was the person who questioned he idea whether people are puppets of the gods or not and he got into trouble with the athenian government, but his ideas were quite cool. i like greek history b/c it is intriguing and cool. out of philosophy came science b/c philosophy is people thinking about how the world works. rene descartes was a philosopher and he developed rationalism which lead people to seek actual reasons for occurrence and not explain them with gods/goddesses. science is great in its development of medicine and people living longer, but science is also corrupt as well. pharmaceuticals keep people on drugs to make money for some diseases that have cures if you eat healthy or keep yourself healthy. genetics allows you to change you child’s genes, which could be good or bad. it could be good to avoid any disorders the child has, but it would be bad as in the case of eugenics when you get the genes you want and create your child. i think that is a bit corrupt b/c you are changing the genes in your child to make them out compete other peoples, it’s like the saying “the rich gene pool gets richer and the poor get poorer.” we are learning about maximums and minimum of a function and the trig functions, radicals and absolute values still get me esp. the ones where you have to use a product rule. i hope my poems cheer you up, thanks for printing them:) currently i am about done with ch. 8 on metabolism for ap biology and have 40 more pages to go for ch. 9 and 10. i have to allocate my time so i can study them for the two hour exam on wednesday. my inner bully has been annoying lately and saying “you will never get your notes done in time, also you are a bad time manager, you’re getting fat by studying too hard and not really working out.” i have been working out during the weekdays for 20 minutes and spending the weekends studying. i usually work out for 30 minutes all week, so that is why my inner bully is being annoying. it keeps saying that since i’m not working out as much that i am a failure in both academics and athletics and that i should just give up b/c i am a pathetic person. i am sick of my inner bully, but i found another reason why it has shown up lately. remember the story i told you about how the inner bully was triggered by the guy being mean towards me for wearing a leotard and how it didn’t affect me until my junior year when another guy told me something mean? while i just walked away and lately i’ve been feeling guilty wondering if i should have defended myself instead, would that have made me feel better? currently i have been helping people who are suicidal, depressed, bullied, lgtb, most of those who need a hand to stand up for themselves. i feel glad that i’m giving them a chance and teaching them to stand up for themselves, but i feel guilty that i just walked away when i was faced by myself with a bullying situation. i wish i could have that same courage for myself. the courage i use to help them defend themselves, but i’m not sure i have it. i will continue to make the inner bully physical and i will heal and smash that inner bully.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Janus.

i hope you do well in defeating your inner bully anita:) thank for your advice and i agree that the inner bully would see faults no matter what ever happens, it would find new barriers in me. i envisioned a clock with its hand being pushed back and with every minute, the inner bully shrinking until it reached the 12 o’clock and the inner bully popped out (like those clocks that go “cuckoo” when the reach twelve. so when the inner bully popped out, i smashed it and bolted the door of the inner bully clock and i threw it into a black hole where it stopped crying out (instead of “cuckoo”), “you’re not good enough.” in fact the inner bully clock stopped and it was sucked into the black hole where it wouldn’t return. thank you for saying i am courageous, you are a great person and your advice always lifts me up:) the inner bully gives me social anxiety b/c i feel everyone is looking at me in a negative way, even though most people aren’t like that, it’s just my inner bully making it seem like it. when i’m in a crowded place, i often feel awkward b/c i sometimes will look at other people and think they are better or they are judging me. i can be aloof at times with people b/c i feel insecure about myself and that makes people think i’m cynical. since i’m always busy doing school work most of the time, there are people who get the wrong impression that i am a “cool-headed, logical person”, but i’m not always that way. my inner bully just prevents me from being myself at times, i’m often afraid to let myself truly go b/c i’m afraid that i will be hurt, this is a reason that i don’t like physical relationships. another thing about me is that i like to be alone early in the morning or at night b/c that’s when i can most be myself w/o the chatter of others around me. in moments of solitude, i am more relaxed and i tend to dance and laugh looking up upon the stars or watching the sun rise.

ledea, i am still coping with parts of my past that often surface and bring me emotional pain. my life isn’t as stagnant as it used to be when i was bullied in middle school b/c now i know i want to be a scientist so i have a direction in life. i think it would be helpful if we talked to each other and gave each other advice. i like anita’s suggestion of starting your own thread, since a separate thread would get more attention as a main idea rather than an extension of just this forum. i often struggle with complex emotions in life, but i don’t think it’s borderline personality disorder though, but i would be welcome to help you and give you advice. i often feel the roots of sadness and anxiety for people are often related such as financial worries, family or peer pressure, bullying etc. maybe we can both help sort things out.