I had to learn to be willing to be everything to my person.
to strip my self down to the purest of my abilities to love.
Just as I had to learn to navigate my imperfections.
reflections of harsh lessons,
big bro had to learn first hand.
And I could only sit back and imagine,
through vicarious impressions 
the pain and punishment that would've left a growing black male shattered.
Closed fist fits, 
from the ashy lipped antagonist.
I had to watch and learn which bridges were made of fragile glasses.
and to learn which relationships were molded fastly, 
but also which ones were tempered and tested ,
to outlast the destructive imagines of separation I knew. 
the ones that I had mastered, by 16 in s2.
Which foundations were rock steady or which the Big Bad wolf could've blew.
Thunderous arguments,
my parents probably though I was too young to have a grasp of it.
but i was always a smart kid!
and seeing my pops swing on the police is implanted and everlasting 
just like the laughs from my friends the next day, 
maybe they were just being kids or maybe they wanted to shower me with embarrassment. 
Cold shivers, from the nights my problems went untucked. 
and a bed time story was never enough to undo the damages. 
which is Why when I was in my early twenties I was so afraid of commitment 
because I didn't believe in the Hollywood imagine that love could be truly everlasting,
and I was scared to fail my first love.
just as my first vision of love had failed me.
but i had to continually rise above the imperfection that I found in my surroundings. 
I remember my first court date wasn't the one that I had brought upon myself. 
But one of ripping a family apart. 
Cheap dollar store tape holding the pieces of my heart in place.
some pieces never replaced and still lost til this very date.
But those are the pieces I heal though you. 
the parts of me I never knew were imperfect
until i found myself being the very imperfections i wished weren't true.