I really do like this poem.
To me, It seems that you opend your heart to the wrong people. There are some people who help and heal your wounds. Yet some are the ones who actually make them.
You can't set them free, because they were the only things that made you happy.
Which is understandable.
I can really relate to your poem and It's really good :D

A sad poem but a true one. Many can relate to it. Great write.

Oh Cara :,( As sad as it is, thank you for writing this <3

I was born with a strong heart, solid and thick as steel.
Warmed and held close by my family, becoming a diamond
as I matured, or so I thought.

- I loved this opening so much because it reminded me of how innocent we all are when we are rbought into the world, we know nothing of the pain and evil in the world and feel protected and sheltered from all the bad. The diamond part was relating to the thought perhaps when you were younger you had this different view of life and how it would be for you, how you would be as a person, but you are soon to find out it is just not as easy as that.

I put my heart out into the world and found that I was not
invulnerable, not invincible.

My heart became chipped and pitted.

Broken by the world around me, I learned to hide my
flaws, to cushion myself and stave off further injury.

- This explains when you first felt your pain and realised that life was sometimes cruel and hard. It shows that it was enough pain to cause you to take your heart back and feel you had to protect in, in such a severe way that you did not trust another soul to have it, in fear of it being broken.

That lesson did not sustain me though.

I am not a lonely creature by nature and in trying to
remake myself, my heart cracked in two.

- This reminds me of the 2 sides of the choice of not giving your heart. In one way if you give it to someone you can become hurt, or you can become deeply loved and love in return. But if you do not give it, you can become so lonely that this pain can sometimes be more damaging to your heart and mind. It just feels easier to go through.

I've seen places, people, times of staggering beauty
that stung my eyes and brought me to my knees,
weeping openly.

I've handed my heart, broken and bleeding, into the
care of other's. Some have been gentle, giving it back only
a little more broken. Some, trampled it and never noticed
the damage done.

- I think this is the most powerful part ( for me ) Although you have described giving your heart to others and entrusting them with it, they have let you down. What I really related to was the part of people hurting you and having no idea of what they have done. This is what I struggle with every day, to know that the people ( and not always the bad ones ) have hurt me and they are not even aware of this. Then others just don't simply care enough about anyone else to stop and think of what they have done to you. Both so painful which you have expressed so vividly with your words.

Yet, through all this, the beauty, rage and pain in my life, I
continue on, undaunted.

(Not really.)

There's something soothing in the cracks and fissures that
reflect the light of the experiences I've survived.

- We can sometimes receive or end up with such beautiful things from the biggest mistakes and regrets, this makes them all the more harder to forget. WE wish they did not exist but then how could we when they have given us something beautiful?

How can you continue to break something that has
never had the chance to be whole?

- I love these types of questions and it is so sad to even think about this one. It is a true state of a hurting heart.

My heart, broken so often in my life, is not the diamond
held tightly.

It has instead, been reduced to a fine powder
and on my passing I shall hold it in my hands and
blow it into the wind...

To be carried around the world, stinging eyes and
sparking beauty in someone else's tears.

- love love love your ending. Firstly I liked the mention of the diamond again but how you remind us that you once thought it would be that simple and now you know you do not feel like this diamond at all and feel no protection that you did when you started in life.

- then to turn your heart into dust and to just blow it all away - this statement is so powerful and touching it brought tears to my eyes to know you had this image in your head when writing this :(

Cara, I really liked this one, I will nominate it Monday because I feel it is worthy and described the pain of a broken heart which everyone can relate to!

Thank you <3