When I tell people “I can’t think of anything to write”- I’m usually lying. What I really mean is I’m scared to. I know, I know, 21st century teen, we aren’t supposed to be fazed by anything; we are supposed to take everything in stride with flamboyant phrases like “Whatever”.

Well, in that case, ‘whatever’ the case- I’m flat out terrified. Scared that when a spark ignites in my chest and an electrical current shoots down my arm to my very fingertips that it isn’t some fatal stroke- it’s something worse- a different kind of heart attack. One that carries on through my fingertips into a chewed to hell pen and waits like lightening prepared to strike and- I’m scared it won’t just be the paper it sears into. It will be me. I’m scared of letting my own words out there and having them cut me open, vivisecting each of my vital organs and snipping the fibers that hold them in place in order to analyse them up close and then be disappointed in their findings.

I’m most scared of slicing out my heart and placing it on a pedestal- a stage it doesn’t deserve. I mean, who would pay money to see something that’s broken? But broken seems like the only thing I have offer when I do let the lighting carve into me, around all my secrets and fears and regrets and straight to the root of them all- the thing the perfectionist in me hasn’t learned to love yet (but hey- give me some time, haven’t been here all too long). The fact is: I am broken. Always have been, always will be. But it always leads me to thinking-what can’t break? Bones break, minds break, waves break, horses are broken, broken promises. Trust. Friendship. People. And of course the “L” word that is on all our minds right now. It can break too. Believe me-I know.

And right when my train of thought begins to spin out of control and I can’t take it anymore I break the silence too and shout “STOP!” because as I dwell on a graveyard full of all the things that can’t last forever a voice whispers “Look around”. So I do, and I see light. Colour. Laughter, smiles and life! I may be broken, but I’m here. And sure, some of the things I’m seeing may not last forever but they are here for now. They are the gift, the present. And though to get here the past had to be bruised and battered you also had to be healed again. Maybe not right back to our perfect innocent state before the breaking and bruising began, but you were healed all the same. Somewhere along the line someone felt you were worth saving. And so I look out and I start a different train of thought running. This time about how maybe broken really means beautiful.

Broken people write books, poetry, songs. Broken people built buildings, cities and entire empires. Broken people made art, made history made a beautiful baby. Broken people hope it will never have to grow up and know what it feels like to be broken too. But it will, and when she does, an entire broken nation will hope that one day when a little girl looks into the mirror, she doesn’t always see the broken, and that she only sees what’s beautiful.

But for now I hope. Hope that though I’m scared, I keep letting that lightening strike me, so I strike my pen which strikes my heart before striking a page which strikes up a vibration we call voice, speak words, shaking words, but spoken words that strike your hearts too. So we can all be as scared as I am to stand here, but be comforted in that fact that we’ve all been scared out of our minds before; be as cut open and bare as I feel, but be sewn together and healed back up again; so we can be broken and beautiful together.