Generational Perception

Shiny, sparkling, like she all brand new..

you know like them dolls granny used to bring back from the market the ones thats all glass like…

she hang up n there yonder cabinet with the other sparkly shiny things…

"Be real careful" she say.

"All real pretty things break, if you don’t handle them right."

Right.

She say it was porcelain,

porcelain like glass, but the finer kind…not see-through but opaque,

opaque the word my granny use..

….. it sat there in between her fine china, and them golden plates she got from Ms. Olivia… Ms. Olivia loved granny cus she took care of her kids real nice.

Nice…

Ms. olivia kids turned out to be nicer than nice, pretty but stronger than porcelain…like marble…

thick skin, but beautiful on the outside.

Able to withstand any ill things God placed in their hands.

See they were stronger than tin mans lifting 50 thousand weighted gas barreled tin cans.

And I so badly wanted to be just like them..

See, my granny looked at me like she looked at those things in her curio cabinet.

She told me I was so pretty,

a magnet, attracting everything that crossed my path and…

I just didn't know if I wanted to be that…

I grew up mirroring shiny sparkling things.

I was fragile…. unable to withstand..

the wind and I was forever breaking..

wasn't strong enough for the taking..

just a doll… in a cabinet.. quiet.. glossed over with no real ability to be anything more than my exterior…

my interior wasn't strong enough to allow me to become inferior.

See, the girl I seen in the mirror I always, always feared of being her…

been through hell and back..

losing the only father figures I ever had to cancer..

losing my mom to male attention..

every setback set a hairline crack ..

in me..

in who I was…

How was I supposed to grow up stronger than all those miasligned pieces that had every intention of dropping me on the concrete and breaking..

me?

I just wanted to be more than a shiny glass object - too fine to be held, just upkept and collected …

tried so hard to increase the positivity within and decrease my dark deceptions.

Unfortunately, a young woman suffering from body dysmorphia and societal perceptions..

the reflection I seen in the glass would never allow me to see my true beauty just every exception….

but

My granny, see she looked at me like she looked at those things in her curio cabinet.

She told me I was so pretty,

and while porcelain is pretty..

It's just too damn opaque for anybody, including myself to see the soul that lies inside clearly..

and that glass barrier cracked, see it cracked and chipped enduring everything I’ve been through..

it just ain't crack deep enough to let the real me shine through..

I never even wanted to be breakable..

I didn't want to grow up mirroring shiny sparkling things…

I never wanted to be fragile.

I just wanted somebody to show me strength, but maybe granny couldn’t teach me, cus her mama never had it….

slavery, accidental biracial children, and brown paper bags were the only layers slip cast in her head and...

I would never be more than “Yes’ms” “Cross your legs correctly!” and just "Sit pretty!"

....the only value, she knew how to instill inside of me.

Shiny, sparkling, like I’m all brand new.

You know like them dolls granny used to bring back from the market the ones that's all glass like…

she hang me up there yonder cabinet with all the other sparkly shiny things…

"Be real careful," she say…

"All real pretty things break."