I built myself out of fragments I never asked permission to take.
A laugh here, a way of standing there.
Mannerisms folded neatly into my pockets like stolen trinkets from a world I didn’t quite belong to.
People never noticed.
Hell—I didn’t notice.
I thought I was just learning to exist.
Each piece didn’t quite fit the next.
Some were jagged, chipped, full of light.
Others—dense, dark, confusing.
I pressed them together anyway, desperate to form something that looked like a person.
Something others might recognize.
Something I might recognize.
It’s a mosaic—
Not a puzzle.
Because puzzles are made to fit.
Mosaics are made from what’s broken.
And sometimes, that’s more beautiful.
The stained glass of me—
messy, sharp, vibrant—
lets the light through in ways I never expected.
Not because it was perfect.
But because it wasn’t.