You know me better than I know me,
or perhaps I don't really know myself at all.
Maybe I only I liked the way the burns felt
because the heat marked the place of where your hands should have been,
and the pain reminded me of how bad it hurt that they weren't.
And you know my fears before I have to face them;
that racism is no longer a war of picket signs and water hoses,
but the way your father will look at you when he sees the way you look at me,
and the way your mother will look at me when I look at her for some hint of acceptance
and only find disgust in the shadows where her eyes should have been.
I know you better than you know you,
because you don't really know yourself at all.
Maybe you only inhaled crystal grains
because every shard of glass that shredded your lungs reminded you
of the times you tried to take a breath but realized that you were suffocating.
Because your pockmarked walls had holes that matched the ones in your heart,
one for every person that falsely assumed that abandonment
only created wounds that were self inflicted.
And maybe that's why we are like two jigsaw pieces from different sets,
that somehow managed, by chance, to match each other's jagged edges
and create a whole new picture.
A one in a million chance, that we both took.