You’ve ground me up into pieces

Made me so small, I can’t see myself anymore

Continue to reduce me through your caprices

Make me so minute I fall through cracks in the floor.

In a minute or in a year

I’ve no doubt you’ll have belittled me to nothing

You’ll whittle me till I finally disappear

Too small to touch or torment, I’m atomizing.

Thus shrunk to my core potential

I grow in the corners I know you’ll leave unchecked

You’ve carved out chunks of me but missed the essential

Dust builds itself up, much like does my self-respect.

You left me grit and silica

Having swept all else that I had into the trash

But as mettle and flint are fire’s formula

I know I’m still equipped to birth embers from ash.