I came out unscathed, didn’t I?

While my brothers and sisters were suffering every day of their lives, 

While they were taken from place to place,

exchanged from person to person, 

From stranger’s arms to stranger’s arms,

While they were placed into bodies that were deprived but not contemptible,

I came out unscathed, didn’t I?

While I was a couple months old and in an unfamiliar home,

While I was too young to know I was found, 

Taken into another stranger’s arms and whisked away like a princess back to their castle,

Except the castle was a small house with plastic flamingos in the front yard, 

And the princess was a little girl with matted black hair and big brown eyes, wearing shoes two sizes too big.

While my brother’s deprived body would cry for help in violent ways like a storm tearing down trees, 

But like the storm within him, he went elsewhere,

Traveling over land and barely touching the ground.

I came out unscathed, didn’t I?

Three years in a home where I learned to love and to be loved,

The taste of raspberries on my tongue,

The smell of grits baking on the stove,

The whistle of a kettle echoing through the walls and through my bones,

The feeling of a stuffed lamb in my loving grip,

And from there, to another home in which I would stay.

I came out unscathed, didn’t I?

Didn’t I, because although I am broken, jagged pieces built up into the form of a human being,

Because although my shards litter the ground, I still know how to smile,

Because although I have cuts and bruises where this world cannot see,

Because although I can laugh I find it hard to cry,

Because deep down there are scars and there is hurt,

Because my thoughts are like poison in my own head, 

And my heart is beating yet fragile and unfeeling,

I came out unscathed,

Didn’t I?