Broken – A Poem About Trust

I do not know who wrote this poem. While browsing my journal that I have been keeping for 6 years now, I realized that I actually copied a poem from an airline magazine on my way to the Philippines from the Netherlands. It is entitled “BROKEN”. It goes:

*****
Just as a bowl
Broken into a million pieces
Cannot be put back together

Neither can a bird
Fallen from a tree
Be revived back to life

Nor a word
Said in haste
Be retrieved

And love
Once betrayed
Cannot ever be restored
*****

I like the poem. One, it is simply written yet each line is meaningful. Two, it says how trust can be so important in a relationship.

Trust is when we assess sincerity and reliability of someone. Trust is what makes a relationship develop and flourish. But most of the time, it is just hard to define trust. At some point I think that trust is something I feel within me towards another person that cannot just be articulated.

We all need trust. Unfortunately, it is something that we all easily take for granted. In fact, we highlight the negative side of it often. We only see the value of people once we’ve lost their trust. Once we have slipped it off our hands, regaining trust can be hard and may even be impossible.

So build your trust with your partner or with people around you. According to Glazebrook in his article: “Building trust in a relationship takes hard work and commitment. Trust requires that you listen to each other and communicate your needs. Trust requires honesty above all else. Once you’ve built trust, you’ve done something magical, and you should do everything in your power to keep it if you plan on maintaining your relationship.”

How would you make people trust you? One writer wrote that you must “let them know who you are”. What does it mean? Tell them what you want, your thoughts, values, and impressions of things around you. Make a stand on something. Set a standard that you have to live by and reflect on it. Realize it to yourself and…slowly let others know about it. They will give you their trust and respect in return. It might be a little hard. But at least, you have let them know what is behind you and within you.

So develop the trust. After all, it is a greater compliment to be trusted than to be loved, as George Macdonald, a novelist and poet said.