Memoir of a Rhinestone

The light boils and boils within me.

I grin without skin

and color gushes out.

I was born in the dark and dirt.

Everyone around me was just like me.

Everyone around me knew they were special.

And some of us held onto that belief,

and I in my green translucency was not the least of them,

until buried in a wood of polished trees I saw

a green so pure,

so somber with the weight of effort and intention-

formed like a tooth of God,

and I felt my plastic disintegrate .