something tells me you don't see my porcupine quills
for what they really are
because despite what you've been told
by those books you read at midnight
to help you erase insecurity
my kindness doesn't make me cherry-filled
my defense doesn't make me secret
your "tragic past" imposed upon me is not my motive
I am not something dug-up, mysterious and ancient
but your chart says that I am
a delicate power you need to protect
a relic from another world, an alien
different
but why compare a dark towering forest to a flower
we are not like gold and silver
we are not precious and we do not hold worth
we are manufactured of mud and clay
as your ancestors and the ones before you were
and I was raised, like mountains from earth, to believe
that all people were merely and nothing less than
human
and we do not earn this right