Poem: Shards of Who I Used to Be

The Fracture
Take me back to the place
Where the first crack formed—
Long before the deployments,
Before the dust and the noise,
Before I learned how easily
A person can break
Without anyone noticing.

The Reflection
I look at myself
Like a window shattered by years,
Each shard holding a memory,
A moment,
A version of me
I no longer recognize.

The Shards
I am pieces—
Not ruined,
But rearranged.
A mosaic made from
Every mission,
Every loss,
Every night I told myself
To hold it together
Just a little longer.

The Weight
Downrange,
You learn to live with fractures.
You learn to move
Even when something inside you
Splinters under pressure.
You learn to smile
While hiding the pieces
That cut you from the inside.

The Truth
And when you come home,
People see the uniform,
The strength,
The discipline—
But not the hairline cracks
Running through the center
Of everything you are.

The Break
I am not broken—
I am changed.
I am the sum of
Every moment that tested me,
Every memory that stayed,
Every piece I had to pick up
Alone in the dark.

The Rebuild
But even shattered glass
Can be reshaped.
Even fractured things
Can reflect light.
And I am learning
To gather the pieces
Without shame,
Without fear,
Without pretending
I was never cut.

The Whole
I rise as something new—
Not the soldier I once was,
Not the person I left behind,
But someone forged
From every shard
That survived the fall.