I am the woman
Your mother warned you about.
You have a missing piece, he said
And he was right:
That piece was tolerance
For racist grandmothers
And gross jokes
Told over tables of restraint.
That piece
That didn’t think a six-year-old
Should be a misogynist.
That piece
Crying angry tears
When she showed up at my job
reprimanded me
For not putting Family first.
I am the woman
You see as unwhole
Precisely because
I am whole.

Erin L. King discovered writing-as-therapy as a child and is still writing decades later.  A social worker and therapist, she lives in Pennsylvania with her partner of 9 years.