I used to be afraid of picking up broken pieces
For a fear of getting hurt
But now it's an obsession
I observe the sharp edges
Run my fingers across jagged points
If I bleed I hope it might act like glue
I want to mend the broken pieces
Because I'm broken too
And maybe if I fix this
I can be fixed too

You come to me in a memory
You come as something broken
Something lost
Something long gone
You come as a message in a bottle
However the bottle broke
And the message is soggy
You come like midnight
Dark
A little too quiet
Or a little too loud to be happy
You come as a barrier
You get in the way of me moving forward
You come like an ice cold winter morning
A little too frozen to fix with coffee
You come as a memory of who I was
You come to tell me what I'm not
You come to me when I think I might be alright
But I'm not
You come to me in a memory
To remind me that's all I've got
A memory of something I lost

I say I'm okay
but I'm not
I'll have my good days
and I'll have my worst
but until the day
I go to bed without
a feeling of dread
or tears on the bed
pounding in my head
the inability to catch my breath
I'm not okay

I won't truly be okay
Until the day
I can say hello
without having to rehearse it
or wonder if I said it
too quiet
or too loud
if it even came out
and worrying if
the conversation will go past that

If the most I say
about how I'm feeling
is okay
and you had to ask in the first place
I'm probably not

If I'm more worried
if you're okay
than I'm probably not
because until I unlearn
how to pick everybody but myself up
I'm not

I say I'm okay
so you don't have to worry about me
but I'll still cling to all the care
and love you give to me
because I'm still unsure
if its all I get
so until the day
I don't feel the need
for reassurance that you care for me
I'm not okay

Until the day
I can no longer relate to this
I'm not okay
but I'm working on it

I want to experience
everything.
I want to
live
every life I can.
I just don't know
how.

I told a boy to go pray today,
and maybe his bad luck is God's way
of saying he needs to get his *** to church.
He grinned
and asked to go with me.

Behind me and my daughter
In line for the Ferris wheel
Perhaps when you are older
You will find breastfeeding
Is the least nasty thing
Your child will do

Wait for the projectile *****
The diaper explosions
Snot handed to you
So kindly like a present
Wait for the strangers to ask you
"So when do you plan to get your body back?"

My body never left
It did the most badass thing
Any body could ever do
What have you done
With the beautiful sharp mind and body
God has given you?
Used your eyes and words
To judge other women
Looked at your tummy in the mirror and thought
"I should be skinnier."

It is a shame,
Women ought to stick together
So I'm going to tell you now
Your bodies are amazing
Magical, you might say
Life giving, you're **** right
Do not judge me
Say that my nursing toddler is nasty
Look at her face,
How can you be so cruel?
For ***** sake,
It's just a ******
I can see more of you
Pre-thirteen
In your crop top and skinny jeans
Than you can of me

I say I'm done
with being treated like ****
because I'm a human
and I deserve respect
but I still get surprised
when I'm treated right
and I apologize
when I've done nothing wrong
but I do stand up for myself occasionally
so that's something
right?