Out of the brokenness
Comes beauty
Something once hidden
Is now free
Free to be seen
Free to fly
Free to live
Before it was bound
Strangled
Barely hanging on
Desperate
Sometimes it begins with a small crack
Then
There are times
A sudden bursting
Regardless of how
Regardless of when
Regardless of why
Out of the brokenness
Deliverance
A bursting forth in a brilliance of light
Live
Fly
Freedom is yours.
©Deborah Seale 2026
In a half-broken cup,
coffee settles—calm, silent.
Dead leaves lie scattered on the table,
beside leafless, lifeless trees—
witnesses to dreams long lost,
witnesses to sleepless nights.
On bamboo-paper pages
resides the address of truth.
A chair holds a quiet presence,
and the soul that sits knows
the weight of silent tears.
Unspoken words drift in the morning sky.
Even the night’s moon
understands the ache of solitude.
2025 Poetry Marathon Mile 14 Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
Contest Judged: 9/6/2025 12:49:00 PM
( 1st Place )
Written: September 04, 2025
They said the songbird
her wings twisted and torn
should quiet herself...
that the sky held no place
for the fragile or the worn.
Yet she kept a sky tucked inside her - a
place untouched by any hand.
At daylight she let her voice rise
and though her body stayed earthbound,
her song lifted past the edge of flight.
The wind slowed to listen,
branches bent nearer
and the horizon seemed to pause,
stirred by her willfulness .
Each note unlaced an old wound,
each chorus pushed against the walls
of a world that once turned her away.
Her feathers never mended,
yet her dream grew wide enough
to shelter every broken one who followed.
From her we understood:
reaching the sky
was never about wings at all.
Solar Eclipse Brokenness
The moon covers the sun’s bright lights
And brings a total darkness in our sights
Fades out the figure of fake possessions
Cuts out the string of short time connections
It brings cold feeling and gloomy emotion
Suddenly makes a person stuck in motion
The beats of the heart skips for a while
Not longing for love, the heart is now fragile
As dark as the eclipse, the broken heart was
No rhythm is on point, the melody is bass
The flare circulates the tears of longing heart
The dim hue deleted the hurt of the start
Let it be, the hurt, and pain, feel and endure
Like moon covers the sun, safe and secure
Love as the eclipse, embracing the flaws
Love as you love, ready to break the laws
Echoing Silence
I
Isolated in an echoing unending room
Where loud noises destroy the silence
Breaks the confidence into million pieces
Nobody wants to pick the entire brokenness
II
Drowning under the shallow regrets
Unable to go further, not even a single step
Both hands are tied up and mouth is covered
No time to think clearly, nobody wants to listen
III
Loud voice, breaking the unbearable silence
Digging the root of uncontrollable violence
Crying from the distance, not once, twice, but till hundreds
Looking for hand to hold, and someone to be with
IV
But sun never kissed the sea, even winter never meets the fall
One mistake in life delivers an affliction
Both cry and laugh, the value is a gemstone
But echoing the truth, still silence holds the dominion
Building castles within my own confinement
only to be hit with the harshest of realities
& replaying what it means to be broken, to heal, and relapse
over and over again.
Numbing the weight of so many life choices
Drowning out screams from all different voices.
Lord please me show me your grace.
Seeing myself in the mirror
I'd rather not show my face.
My self esteem crumbled
Self-worth turned to dust
I'm suffering due to a lack of self love
And unwillingness to trust
Feeling as if my body left me unhealed
without my soul intact
Praying I could right the wrongs
that haunt me from my past
afraid of what appears impossible
A daunting peak.. still within my grasp
Have to take that leap of faith
to start me on the path
Dear Lord I pray you break these chains that refuse to set me free
bound from years and years of pain.
Most of which have remained unseen
Let me feel your light my Lord
The warmth shine on my face
I need to feel your selfless love
I need your warm embrace.
The thought of this battle
it heightens all senses of "fight or flight"
I'm writing this in hopes to from now until forever
Guide me into your light.
Build me a sandcastle of drifting dream,
just to scatter every particle in the wind...
Lay me under the burden of brokenness,
until the shore gives in to a new dream.
~Ayesh
Life without money
Very boring and funny
But educative
No company to commune with
Solitude your best friend
Constantly reminiscing and relearning.
A broke man, a lonely man
Bitter many days, always angry and worried
Many label him lazy
Forgetting hard times humble people
Many call's him crazy
When caught laughing and happy all alone.
When a man is down
If there's no leaning shoulder
It takes God and miracle
No body understand
Every action or reactions
Makes him lazy and crazy
If you listen and support people
Instead of condemning or humiliating them; They're liberated from whatever.
Author Dana Redricks
April 30, 2024
The level of Brokenness runs so deep even if I tried to explain I feel no one could understand. The pain in my heart has left a hole in my soul, and only God Yahweh can make me whole. My past haunts me, and how I long to be free
My heart is broken and just like humpty Dumpty, I just want to be put back together again. I want to be loved, but I think how someone loves somebody as broken as me.
I carry around this burden in my external body seeking sweet release in smoke, in a bottle, or in a package, but no relief. I'm screaming inwardly, but no one can hear me, if people could see what I see. They would see a person dying slowly, and I long for the Lord to deliver me.
Broken bits of glass gleaming
Under the sun, beaming
Glittering and golden, glass glaring
Shattered shards shining
Shimmering sunlight
Revealing a striking glare
Slivered sections, subtle imperfections
Reflecting fractals, kaleidoscope window panes
Fragmented picture frames
Broken on the ground it laid
Sun saturates it’s broken seams
Cracks and creases cascade rainbow light,
Behold beauty from brokenness, bright
I
Grow as Nature does around a human mining operation
Oil you hair, open your eyes wider, ears softer... roll heart over diction
Dry your tears, give broken heart to Dr. G O D, Jehovah Rohfikaa, Elohim
II
Broken hearts can mend, do not rush to hate or declare an end, stay a friend
People out here in this World are agonized, wounded for more reasons than anyone may decipher.
Where’s the compassion? For another human being. It’s so much going on in the world, it makes one want to hollar. Somebody please tell me what’s going on in the world.
Take me as I am, just as I am,
For I am broken into pieces
With irregular edges, my flesh
Was scarred by hopelessness,
And, sometimes, utter despair
From destructive forces which
I…I alone could not conquer.
The pieces of me have struggled
To come together to reassemble
To make my whole worthy, and I
Want you to know I am capable
Of love, Lord, if you take me as I am.
FOURTH PLACE WINNER
submitted to "Inspirational Christian" Poetry Contest
sponsored by Regina McIntosh
February 22, 2022
Written August 12, 2021
especially for “Broken Pottery” Poetry Contest
sponsored by Craig Cornish
HONORABLE MENTION
Poetry Contest by Astaria
All Poetry - August 15, 2021
Flawed Masquerade Carnival
Upon the midway of imperfection,
The traveling human circus, “illusion” of perfection,
A masquerading “mask,” in carnival unmasked,
Lies “cracked” in equinox
Like “torn” tickets discarded in the sawdust of dreams
As the “façade” crashes down into “flawed” fragments
To scatter splinters in wild spinning carousels
Flinging away the costumes of sideshows
All exposed wearing nothing but transparent truth.
Bathed in dignity
Integrity rises up shaking off ballyhooed dust
Shuts out the carney’s “broken” come-ons,
Taunts and barkers no longer entice,
Clothed in capes woven of calypso sunlight
Scarred arms, no longer concealed,
Reach out to clasp thundering pure moonbeams
Discarding charade’s ragged camouflage
And the “imperfect” circus moves on to another town.
6-21-21
Contest: Flawed
Sponsor: Constance La France
Prompt words: flawed, mask, broken, cracked, façade, torn, illusion, imperfect
How Can This Be…
How can this be…
Amazing grace survives
in ruins of self-inflicted rubble -
False walls of lies –
Where brittle stars
Explode
With love,
Escaping
Tones of pale platinum
Grey guilt -
Jagged traps of swirling revenge -
Imploding
Into the first watch
Of renewing lightness;
How can this heart -
Clothed in the naked shades of shame -
Not flee into lies of fantasy;
Retribution redeemed
Before eyes waking,
Blessed in blinding colored facets
As mercy sweeps away faceless bitterness;
How can this be,,.
Found –
Confronted -
By gentle hands of creation
And called beloved child,
Daring not look up into the redeeming eyes of majesty,
But live beneath amazing wings of hair raising joy;
Disbelief overwhelmed in
Elation,
No longer chained behind
The curtain of crushing blame,
All consuming gratitude on fallen knees,
A thousand pieces of brokenness
Fit perfectly again
Like the creation designed before the abyss
Became mute –
Earthen treasure seamlessly restored
Wearing rings of benedictions
Spoken in blinding grace -
How can this be…
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