Before you hold me, please understand
I am the daughter
of an Italian and Latin mixed man
whose dark skin did not sit easy
in a white bred world
he wasn't liked for the scars on his hands
or for his off the beaten path ideas and plans
Not a man of suit a tie, rather of heart, strength and internal fight
A man whose father never loved him
And so he learned how to taste pain, even down to the nerves under his teeth
until even agony
couldn't even make him seethe.
Before you guide me, please understand
My first Love was Him, a dad daughter bond in its very own special box
Don't even bother looking inside, it's Locked
And Even when you see the wrong he’s done
I don’t want to hear a single one
Before you hold me, please understand
I am the daughter
of an Irish girl from a large Catholic clan
who was never taught to fight
Instead she would vanish in the night
to survive by silence
to bury the truth so deep
that it forgot how to beat inside of her, how to slay
She never wanted me to be a fighter
But I became one anyway
Before you hold me, please deeply know
my sister’s love was slow to show
She was for a long time sick, and I was small
and she barely even acknowledged me at all
So I learned how
to be sort of an only child
I didn’t cry much
just waited,
hoping one day,
shed love me
without me having to speak
but in the end, I wound up jaded
Before you hold me, please understand
There are pieces of me
you will never find and I don't want you to.
not because I hide them,
but because they were taken,
Left behind,
or broken beyond even any kind of recognition
Before you hold me, Please understand
I do not want to solved, like a rain drop felt in the palm of a hand
I am not a riddle
not a broken "thing" you can pick off the street and
and attempt to fix into your version of "normal."
love is not a project
and I will never have a blue print to give you
Before you hold me, Please understand
I don't like to bluff, the cards Ive been dealt have alone been enough
If you need someone whole
someone uncomplicated..then Im not the Queen in your game
But if you can sit
in the stillness of what’s left of me
You might not lose but gain
Before you hold me, please understand
What's included with me is stories
of building shelter from wreckage
I wake and sleep with a heart that has known a million different homes
and these homes have all been stolen from me, condemned
but they all live in me like old forgotten friends
Before you hold me, know this part of my life
I am a singer
before a girlfriend, a lover, or wife
My voice was my stronghold
my shelter, my start
the sound that stitched
the wounds in my heart.
Before you hold me and study my skin,
There lives a scar on the inside of my knee
I was ten, I almost died
A freak accident I can’t hide
Playing Basketball, a piece of window frame steel,
A cut so deep, never to heal
Before you hold me, please understand
I do not come untouched
but I come real
And the thing about a broken woman is that when she Loves,
its with every single thing she feels