I Can't Remember What I Fought

I used to be a sword. A long polished blade, a hilt made of steel wrapped in black leather. A simple tool, summarized in a simple sentence. And yet, somehow, I have become different. I can hardly remember breaking. A moment of pressure like any other, only this time I gave. I remember falling to the floor, losing a war I'd waged against gravity since I was first forged. I was a sword, and swords aren't made to break. I was useless, lost. And then I was found. I don't know what I am now. Pieces culled from a blade I used to be, a life I'd lived and lost. I don't know if I can go back to being the sword I was, but that sword broke. I can't be that sword. I have to be stronger. I don't know what I look like now. I tremble at the sight of me, cracked, chipped, misshapen. Can a bent sword still pierce, still matter, still impose some sense of a difference over the world? I don't know, but I'll try. I am a blade that thinks, that dreams, that dies and then lives. I dare. I matter. And I will *not* be broken again.