Piecing Me Together

by Renée Watson

When she says this, so many thoughts rush through my mind. I am thinking about how Mom had plenty of dreams, and E.J. is not short on self-confidence, and Lee Lee has known she wants to be a poet since we were in middle school, so it can’t be just about believing and dreaming. My neighborhood is full of big dreamers. But I know that doesn’t mean those dreams will come true. I know something happens between the time our mothers and fathers and teachers and mentors send us out into the world telling us, “The world is yours,” and “You are beautiful,” and “You can be anything,” and the time we return to them. Something happens when people tell me I have a pretty face, ignoring me from the neck down. When I watch the news and see unarmed black men and women shot dead over and over, it’s kind of hard to believe this world is mine. Sometimes it feels like I leave home a whole person, sent off with kisses from Mom, who is hanging her every hope on my future. By the time I get home I feel like my soul has been shattered into a million pieces. Mom’s love repairs me.

And this makes me wonder if a black girl’s life is only about being stitched together and coming undone, being stitched together and coming undone. I wonder if there’s ever a way for a girl like me to feel whole. Wonder if any of these women can answer that.

Be bold. Be brave. Be beautiful. Be brilliant. Be (your) best.

I don’t know what’s worse. Being mistreated because of the color of your skin, your size, or having to prove that it really happened.

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