The Necklace

The Necklace

This necklace bore my life and my dreams

Brilliantly coloured glass beads

Black and purple held my sorrows and my dignity

Green and blue my connection with earth, my tranquility

Red my passion for all my beliefs

Pink for the child in me

In each glass bead there was a dream, a wish to be fulfilled

Some beads heavy, some light

Their weight invisible to the naked eye, only known by me

The necklace was a gift from my creator

Each day I wore my necklace with pride and humility

It reminded me of all that could be achieved and all that I had forgone

I stood tall and let others see

My necklace gleaming so brightly

It caught the gaze of many evil eyes

But I guarded the necklace with all my life

Throughout the day I’d touch the beads

Feel its power overcome me

But one tragic day the clasp became undone

My necklace crashed to the pavement

Broke into pieces, a thousand and one

I knelt to the ground and wept as I saw

My broken life and dreams before me

But still gleaming in the sun

I ran back to my home and wept some more

The following days seemed like an eternity

I was hollow, so incomplete, and so weak in the knees

When the black beads had crashed, I felt a weight lifted from me

But then the purple took away my dignity

That I had gained from the weight of the sorrows I carried

I no longer felt at one with nature

My passion and tranquility taken away

At nights I laid awake in a frenzied state

My inner child, innocence gone

I needed my necklace, without which I was not myself

I went back to the place where my dreams had broken

By now mud had covered the thousand and one pieces

The thread splintered and so frail

For the past week my dreams had been trampled over

They were no longer gleaming so brilliantly

But weeping for I’d been careless and left them to suffer

I picked up a few pieces of the beads

At home I tried to make them once again complete

But now something was not right

The pieces fit into place, but the colors were not whole

All the blues repelled each other, as did the pieces of the other colors

The colors asked to be blended with one another

The beads were no longer just red, purple, green, blue, black or pink

My life and dreams were fused together

Each bead now a multicolored work of art

Each bead as exquisite as me

I went back to the place where my necklace had broke

And picked up all the remaining pieces

Worked diligently until my necklace was whole

It was not the same necklace I once bore

Made of the same pieces, but now what I wore

Was new, still regarded as a gift from my creator

The pieces didn’t fit into the places they once used to be

But my life and dreams were still complete

Still waiting to be lived and fulfilled

Gleaming evermore brighter than before.