Broken Pieces

Growing up I was never the favorite Never the good kid Never given a chance My outbursts were shut down I was told to Sit down Shut up Keep it together My parents struggled to keep me in school They never had the money to treat me Constantly being told that I wasn’t good enough Not once did someone sit down with me And try to channel my differences into something positive I grew up thinking that I was a failure That I would never amount to anything That I would never be in control of my own body You see, in a world where we preach equality We seem to forget that being different doesn’t mean being worse That our differences are actually just the edges on the puzzle piece that allows us all to fit together in harmony I am more than my disorder I cannot be defined by any manual, dictionary, or doctor I am not a statistic in a project or a number in a book Just because you can not contain me Doesn’t mean that I should be contained My energy fills the sky and brings the stars to life My attention reaches every corner of the Earth, Constantly searching, learning, growing Your boundaries are my front porch I’ll drink my coffee and go explore the world in which you don’t dare travel I’ve been lost and forgotten too many times To fear making a wrong turn now So before you sit back and judge me for not fitting in to your mold Ask yourself why you’re so afraid of me Why four letters have you scrambling for a solution in a pill bottle I am not a tragedy My brain processes chemicals differently than yours But that doesn’t mean that what I have to say is invalid That I’m any less of a human being I am your friend Your sister Your brother Your mother Your acquaintance Your teacher I’m the kid down the hall struggling to pass into the next grade But who can go and paint a mural so beautiful it could stop traffic I’m the applicant being turned away from job interviews because of my ‘erratic behavior’ But who can look at a problem that’s been stumping you for weeks and see a solution I’m the outcast who goes home and cries everyday because no one can see past this disorder I’m the dropout with abandoned dreams who loves to learn but could never get it quite right I am everywhere You just choose not to see me Stop pretending that I do not exist Your weaknesses are my strengths and your strengths are my weaknesses We can climb this mountain alone and each get half way Or we can climb together and reach the top Without me your puzzle will never be fully complete You can trim my edges and put me in a different spot But there will still be a hole left behind You stare at the half completed jigsaw in front of you wondering where all the pieces went Why is it that the first place you look is the floor? Instead, look in the mirror We are there in the parts of yourself that you forget to see We are your broken pieces that fell to the ground and never fit back just right We’ve been shattered, stepped on, and forgotten, but we’re not gone Can you see me? Can you see me?