Planning a quest for me.
It starts here, at this desk,
where my fingers tap keys.
A quest unlike most games,
where you seek a person,
an item, a theme.
No, my quest is myself.
First, I’ll dismantle me.
Rearrange and step back,
to see it all — good or bad,
murky or clear.
Those warped and dented pieces
scattered amongst the whole —
don’t keep any,
they just don’t fit anymore —
Long ago, quick fixes that worked once,
but now, they’ve pierced me through,
preventing growth.
Toss them out.
But what to replace?
Dig deep into softy, crumbling soil;
my fingernails scrap at some clay.
slowly, gently, mold a new piece.
One that’s healthy and open,
one that holds no walls
no defenses.
Simply a shard of trust and hope
to cement together what’s left.
One by one,
I’ll dismantle myself,
One by one,
I’ll rebuild.
All of my sour memories —
all of the pain,
fear, bad habits
that throttle my growth —
Throw them into a fire,
reforge into new materials,
recycling what I can,
and what I can’t —
I’ll just start anew.
One piece at a time.
Reshaping Reality 
Wow, this is really beautiful. The language isn’t gooey or sentimental or weepy, but strong and direct. Love it. (Theme sounds just like the self-searching poetry I wrote shortly after college. It’s a hard journey, but poetry is a fabulous way to explore it.)
I’m not sure how I missed the poem you posted at LF, either. Comments got rather heated, I see. Yikes. It looks like we have a know-it-all lurking on the forums. Don’t you just love that kind of commenting? Sheesh.
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Thank you! Spent two days on the poem, trying to craft it just right.
I hope my responses to the know-it-all was appropriate. It just seemed strange and disrespectful to me to assume writers on a writing forum didn’t know their craft or the history of their craft. Seems better to ask what they know then try to guess.
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