ACT I: Collecting Jigsaw Puzzles

My life has been a series of jigsaw puzzles, the first as pretty a picture as you could wish to see.  It never occurred to anyone that anything could mar the image of a bonny baby in all her glorious honey-hued, gurgling perfection.  

They never found out who crept into the playroom and stole the first piece. It was only one little piece – the size of a sixpence on the baby’s left ankle.  Hardly noticeable. A pity though that such a pretty puzzle should be incomplete.

The next piece to vanish left a leaf-shaped hole in the baby’s back. Did someone accidentally knock over the board? Perhaps the lost pieces are on the floor or down the back of the sofa.

But if that is so, why could they find no trace?  Surely it had to be the work of a thief because it did not end there.

The next puzzle was a toddler.  How strange that the same pieces were missing here too.  Not only that, but a third and fourth piece had gone – the other ankle this time and now a tiny gap at one corner of the child’s mouth.  Why would anyone want to remove random pieces of the puzzle? And how did they do it without getting caught?

No one had any answers.

Successive puzzles depicting a panda-eyed schoolgirl, a shy adolescent, a carefully groomed young woman – all plundered by unseen hands – revealed more and more of the blank surface beneath and ever less of the subject herself.

One day I opened a new box and asked myself “Is this puzzle half here or half gone?”

There comes a point when a puzzle ceases to be a picture with gaps and becomes a blank space strewn with fragments like the excavated remnants of an ancient mosaic.

Would some archaeologist dig me up and fill in the blanks to show posterity what I once looked like?

The jigsaw of a woman in her 40s would have been quick to complete, since so few of the pieces actually connected. Scattered across the board, it was impossible to decide if they, or the space between them, were the real object of the exercise.

I suppose it all depends on how you look at it.

Over the course of 50 years my unplanned jigsaw collection progressed from Bonny-Baby to Can-You-Tell-What-It-Is-Yet? What would the next puzzle be called… The-Invisible-Woman perhaps?

If you think jigsaws are frustrating, try my next hobby…

ACT II: Painting by Numbers

Number 1 was the original skin tone, a light golden beige, my favourite pigment.


Number 2 was the colour of nettle rash, mottled and roughly textured.


This was closely followed by number 3, a stark white, applied almost symmetrically in random patterns, some clearly delineated, others splashed carelessly across the canvas like spilt milk. (No sense in crying over it. There is no cure. It won't **** you.)

There’s nothing quite like summer for bringing out the colours of a painting.  A hat and long sleeves were no match for the persistent sun and by the time the picture was finished, the numbered paints ranged from 1 to 20 with a different abstract brush stroke to go with each one. My canvas contained a tortoiseshell patchwork of shades from brilliant white to violet, golden ochre, burnt sienna, chestnut and scarlet.

And yet this was the height of my blue period.

I had to paint by numbers for 50 summers before I could enjoy my third (and final?) pastime…

ACT III: Joining the Dots

By sheer fluke, at the age of 51, I discovered the secret of the missing jigsaw puzzle pieces. They were there all along – just not visible to the naked eye.  


They had been starved into transparency but, as I began to feed them, atoms of them materialised like specks of golden ink on blotting paper.  Tiny dots like pixels on a grainy satellite image, jostling, overlapping and joining together until they looked something like the missing jigsaw pieces - if a little mottled with mildew.  

And gradually the mildew has faded - along with the sense of loss - to reveal glorious, even colour.

Of all the activities I ever found in the playroom of my life, the most cherished, the most miraculous, the most deeply longed-for and appreciated has been this game of Join the Dots - an unremarkable pastime, you may think (if you have never walked in my shoes), but one which has brought me on a return journey along a jigsaw road from
Almost-Invisible
via Can-You-Tell-What-It-Is-Yet?
past Half-Here-Or-Half-Gone?
by way of A-Pity-That-It’s-Incomplete
and finally – if not quite back to Bonny-Baby – then at least back home to a grateful woman of a certain age who can look in the mirror and smile to see her whole self.


   Vitiligo: A Play(room) in 3 Acts © August 2013 Vitiligo Protocol

I remember you telling me before that you saw yourself as a jigsaw puzzle.* I never understood you then because why would you compare yourself with a thing that requires pieces. You explained that you have 6 pieces in you, pieces that made you, created you. Pieces that were the reason for the person you are today, pieces that helped you function, in other words, pieces that made you whole. That was why you called yourself as a 6 piece jigsaw puzzle. But then one day, you told me all of those pieces were missing. You said someone or something took it away from you and you have no idea how to get them back. You explained to me thoroughly how they were removed from you. The first piece was removed when you were in your room one night, hearing your parents fight, yelling and arguing, telling hurtful things to each other. So you decided to put some headphones on and played some music so you wouldn’t hear their shouts but then they barged into your room saying one of them is leaving and you have to decide which one of them you are coming with, you pretended to not hear them but deep inside of you, even though how loud the volume was, it suddenly stopped without you muting it, because all you could hear was their love for each other slowly fading away. The second piece was removed when one day some unwanted visitors came into your house and they told you they call themselves as demons and that they brought you things that you cannot possibly return; you opened the boxes and see that those things were called depression and anxiety. The third piece was removed when your so called best friends told you they were always there for you but when you were sitting on a bathroom floor filled with blood and hopelessness nobody came to pick you up.  The fourth piece was removed when you someone told you they will help you find those lost pieces but one day she was just not there, and instead of finding the missing ones, one of the remaining was lost again. The fifth piece was removed when you saw him, the love of your life, loving another being that wasn’t you and when you asked why he told you he just couldn’t deal with someone who was like a puzzle that wasn’t solved, you were about to tell him you were once the one he was looking for but then he told you, oh scratch it, a puzzle that could never be solved. And the last and final piece was removed, because life took it away from you. And then suddenly all of those pieces were lost.


I want to help you, i want to do everything just to find those pieces. But you’ve got to help yourself also. You are the biggest help you need, and maybe, just maybe, those pieces can be found in the most unexpected places. Perhaps the first piece can be found when you’re listening to your favourite song and the lyrics felt like blankets that comfort you when it’s cold and suddenly it felt like home. First piece found. Perhaps it’s the feeling of waking up at 5:30 in the morning, feeling ******, and when you went outside, you saw the sunrise, and realised that somehow you can rise again like that. Second piece found. Maybe it was sitting in a cafe, sipping unnecessary caffeine, looking at the people who were passing in front of you, thinking of how much they’ve been through, and still surviving like you, and somehow that made you feel better, that’s why your face formed an unnecessary smile. Third piece found. Maybe it was when it rained so hard, but it doesn’t compare to your tears, you cried and cried, as the rain poured and poured, then the rain suddenly stopped and the sky formed a rainbow, you looked at it and think that maybe your tears can form colours too. Fourth piece found. Perhaps it’s when you can’t sleep at night, so you just look at your scars, before you thought they were ugly and disgusting, they did nothing to you but made you remember how much of a mess you are, but now you look at them in a different way, they weren’t battle scars, because battle was an understatement on how difficult the things they had overcome. And now you see them as a reminder of how much of a soldier you are. Fifth piece found. And maybe, it was when you decided to go to an art museum, you were fascinated by the wonderful paintings, then you thought, you used to be like those works of art; beautiful and important. But then you suddenly heard one painting, whispering you something, it said, a masterpiece is still a masterpiece no matter how broken it is. Sixth piece, and final piece, found.


So, darling, If by means life took those away from you, you should do everything to get those back. And yes, you will tell me, nothing can bring back those pieces anymore, but you can be a puzzle piece that is solved without the pieces you had before, you can find those pieces without asking for help, you can find those on your own, you can make pieces all by yourself. It doesn’t matter how fast you puzzled it out, the only thing that matters is that you solved it. *You solved the jigsaw puzzle. You solved you.  **And guess what? You will be whole again. You will realise you always was, and that is the reason you will not let anyone or anything, change that again.

we were puzzle pieces that fit perfectly...
but just belonged to different jigsaw sets..

Eyes stare...
Into nothingness,
The jigsaw of to be’s,
Arranges and rearranges;
Into an appeal of mirage...
Swelling the oasis of life!

And when the glare pierces,
Eyes blink;
The jigsaw settles,
Synchronized with reality;
Strengthening my mind...
To derive the quirky balance -
Between the could be’s ;
And the one that is!

The world is
One huge
Jigsaw puzzle.

Everyone is a puzzle piece.
And just like how
Every puzzle piece is unique,
How the puzzle would be incomplete
Should even just one piece go missing,
Everyone on earth is unique,
And the world would be incomplete
Without any one person.

Except me, of course.
I'm merely
An extra piece.

Me and you
are broken
in different places
so that we
fit together
like a jigsaw puzzle

You so frenetic
so open
you are a hurricane
people always remember
when you pass through
venting your insecurities

Me so passive
not a care in the world
always out of touching distance
I am a rock
covered in moss
always numb

we fit together
like a jigsaw puzzle
and together
through our flaws
we make a picture
which is so beautiful

I wish to see
The color of your eyes
The expression on your face
At dawn when you said goodbye..
A handwritten note good bye
Left on the side table...
This jigsaw puzzle
Took years to solve
Why did you say goodbye?

I wish also
Time would heal all wounds
But only time would tell...
Forgiving might be easy
Forgetting crawls while time passing by...
When will the clock stop ticking ?
I just wish to die....

life is like a jigsaw the pieces you must fit
has you walk through life you will find each bit
each and every corner that you around
each and every place a new piece will be found

put them all in place a picture you will see
and jigsaw of your your life how its meant to be
everything in life is there for you to take
to make it all come true this jigsaw you must make

I am a jigsaw puzzle…
Packaged, broken down and oddly pieced.
Vivid colors. A curious captivation.
Although… with time they have faded…and creased.

Handed down like an antique quilt.
Fragile and warn, only portions of my picture complete.
Left wondering if I will ever be seen as one.
Admired as whole, even with corners somewhat oblique.

So I set out on a journey:
Re-genesis of the soul.
Craving colors unimagined:
An apocalypse of the world of dull.

Along the way I caught a glimpse.
I unearthed Utopia.
A world lent only to dreams and fairytales.
Yet I couldn’t seem to give in and face this phobia.

I continued along my search.
This time with a new groove in my step.
Part of me wanted to turn back,
But that could’ve meant loosing the little I had left.

I felt something flowering within.
I may have looked away, but that moment a seed was planted.
Roots of strength embedding themselves into my soul,
A new chance at life finally granted.

Fresh oxygen to inhale,
As this life grows inside of me.
Battling with worry and yet no panic at all.
Something so charming and enormous, the world deserves to see.

Branches of love breaking through my surface,
A bungee cord tugs, than allots some slack.
Leaves of unwritten memories begin to evolve.
This budding life needs nurture…I need to turn back.

Before I can set foot to turn around…
Utopia at my fingertips.
Life, nurture…a wonderland unsought.
And that is all before the meeting of our lips.

i have one hundred pocket pieces, they are parts of a jigsaw i never had the patience to put together and i carry them with me. i walk around like i'm on a tightrope from where i am right now to where you are. i try to make it in one piece, but i drop pieces. i can't lose too many because they are the only things that fit together and they resemble our hands.
i remember,
the last time our fingertips touched (do you?) you let go of my hand and i captured how it felt to be held by you, a vision i replay like a memory tape stuck on repeat; do you think our hands were jigsaw pieces? (i do)
you let go and you got on a train and i emptied my pockets for you, a trail so you could find your way back to me but i am still walking a tightrope.
is this a circus act?
is this an act?
can we cut to the scene where my legs buckle underneath me and i freefall through bottomless clouds (i'd probably still be searching for your eyes, or your hands) and all of a sudden i land on my feet and you are beside me just like you have been the entire time and i feel those fingertips again lace their way down my palm and you smile and tell me you've been expecting me?
i've watched too many romance movies, this is what you told me. you told me real life doesn't happen like that, so why am i still leaving trails?
am i losing my mind?
it kind of feels like i'm too far away from home to know where i am but yet it's so familiar and i am so at ease because i am walking this tightrope to get closer to you,
just follow my trail,
please.

come back to me.