gratefulness is the gold fillings
in your cracked porcelain skin
recognition of your brokenness--
not the brokenness itself--
is the beauty in imperfection.

white ripples across your surface become
golden seams. the tectonic design is
a topographical map of scars and stitches;
the adherence of
traits that don't otherwise connect.

"you are beautiful," he tells you as
he kisses each mark softly,
his lips tracing a winding path through
your gardens.

it is not his words that make it so
but they settle just the same
reminding you that it’s not the cracks
that make you glitter
but the gold with which you fill them—
forgiveness
grace
and love.