I was once a boulder hidden from mankind, dormant in the mountains. I was round, I think. Or maybe I was irregularly shaped, and not a boulder at all, but just a jut of rock emerging from the earth. Not quite sure.
I think I was marble. Or perhaps limestone? Granite? Strange how I remember so little about myself, as if a sliver of my memory managed to diffuse through my solid anatomy. Or maybe that memory never existed. Maybe I myself was still nonexistent.
All I remember is being constantly shaped by Mother Nature and Father Time. Sometimes they lovingly irked me, and other times they would violently thrash at my vulnerable shape. Storms, wind, water, fire tore me down, and built me back up; sediments of my being would be stripped away, only to be replaced by an open wound or filled in with debris from another stone nearby. Simple life forms such as bacteria or seeds would creep their way into my façade’s cracks, and spawn into a part of me over a span of time. Sometimes I would be polished, refined, beautified by the world’s processes. Other times, I would be left contaminated, unkempt, disheveled.
A millennia of changes, with each change only temporarily permanent. My stay in the cyclic prison felt like an eternity. However, eternity turned out to be shorter than I expected, for one day (or night, not quite sure), I felt the strong hands of a human gently stroke my surface. With a gruff grunt of approval, the human, armed with his tools of great destruction and creation, pried me free from the floor that had kept me grounded for so long. My savior loaded me onto his truck, and he rushed me home, his home.
With the slightest thump, he gingerly propped me onto his art studio floor. Although I had no eyes, I could sense that this man’s passion for art blossomed not only from his body, but thrived throughout the entire room. The spirit of each piece of artwork that crowded the modest, clustered room whispered greetings at me, now a slab of rock, ready to serve as his canvas.
He brushed away the debris and unwanted life forms that had clung to me for shelter. Then, with his tools of great destruction and creation, the artist chipped away at my surface like the wind, a feeling that I knew too painfully well. Only this time, there was a certain beauty to his work. It was not like the random raging of the elements that I had been previously enveloped in. He seemed to have a purpose, a plan. A plan for me.
Yes, the slow, torturous days of the artist hacking away at my structure were agonizingly excruciating. He. was. just. so. slow. yet. so. effective. The digging of his chisel, the scraping of the sand paper, peeled away more pieces of my body than years of exposure had before. Fragments of me littered the ground, wailing at me for help. But there was a peculiar familiarity in his work. It wasn’t so similar to what I had experienced before, but more of an innate intimacy.
He was in a way, cleansing me. By fully dismantling my adulterated shell that had always felt the full fury of nature and time, he was exposing my core, my genuine, undiluted self. I could feel my once random, abnormal form taking shape into what seemed to be the lumpy body of a human. Then came the details, the handsome features that defined me. The mouth, nose, ears, hair…
The last pieces of the puzzle were the eyes, which the artist gingerly carved in with the utmost care.
I heard the artist take a step back and sigh with content, signaling the end of his project. And with that, I opened my eyes for the first time.
I locked eyes with my reflection in the mirror. I was so beautiful.
And next to me stood the artist. My master.
And he looked just like me.
He was me.

My composition, my meat, may have been molded by a greater power.
My thoughts, my past, may have been influenced by the external forces around me.
But I am the only one who can finally decide who or what I am to be, no matter how painful it may be for myself to shape myself.
I am my own master, and my own masterpiece.
And I am finally at peace.