Ben Paynter - broken

I’ve been asked more than
once, twice, fifty more
what made me some kind of
broken.

Been answering the question
same way for years, been
laughing, swearing, yelling
back little gems I make up

along the way. I feel most
of it, maybe all of it, was
a stump of a tree I cut down
and regretted it for years.

The way the other trees
grew around it, mocking.
How there never was a
place as empty after that.

Ben Paynter

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/broken-531/