I don't want to have to pick through your fragments and broken pieces
I have too many of my own that I haven't had idle time to rid of
because where I'm from, no one taught us that broken pieces weren't actually useful enough after being discarded to build something
So I've carried them year after year
heart break after heart break
fears and more fears
that someone would notice that I've been carrying all these pieces that are mismatched and mostly by nature
natural because each time I get shaken and rattled
there are more pieces
more fragments
and as we each go to bend down
to retrieve what we conceived to have fallen
we've ended up picking up someone else's pieces

convince me otherwise
but I know more than you're thinking
I've been through some ups and downs
some on the high side of extreme
but I'm still here
lost amid the troubles of this world
a woman now afraid for her children
no room to be an afraid little girl
ashamed, sometime, of the blessings I've received
afraid that they only see my exterior
not the power and beauty of the reproduction of my genes
and it would seem, that I've gotten used to being stared at and talked about as if I can't see
but who in their right mind would ever get used to being judged by the smaller pieces?