2 Corinthians 4:7-12

The world flattens me with its hand
Kneads me until I am desirable
My whole life is planned
By some predestined label
Of what I am
Based on what they need
I am pushed and pressed and jammed
Yet they tell that I am freed
Into an alabaster jar
Is where they make my home
But that's just the way societies are
Not letting us wonder and roam
Instead we are locked inside
Where they tell you, you can't shine
Because light is something you hide
You have to follow the line
Of the mold of all the others
We have to be the same
So in lies, we are smothered
That we have to be tamed
I am tired of being whittled
Into an empty soul
And everyone who riddles
Me into thinking that I am whole
But I am a crusty clump of clay
Living in my alabaster jar
On the verge of turning gray
And from death I'm not too far
From all society's endless sculpts
But maybe it has to be endured
To know we are able to be pulped
For on the other side, you can be cured
By someone past our society
Is the one we can trust to mold
The lives of all the clay and me
Into chinks of gold
So when society tells me to live by its measure
I know God sees me inside my alabaster jar as a treasure.
-anna sluder

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