I'm Not Meant to be Fixed

To be a woman,

you have to mask your flaws.

A little girl, upset at the world-

"you're fine," her mother says.

That girl, now eleven,

is picked on by her peers.

"You're fine," her mother says.

So, she takes the hits.

Years of masking and hiding,

no safety in any of it.

She's fifteen going on sixteen-

"you're fine," leads her somewhere dark.

She sees a doctor to fix what feels broken,

and leaves with a name for it.

All those years of shrinking herself

never made the autism go away.

She is eighteen now, with something to reach for.

Learning to stop hiding parts of herself is difficult,

but she keeps going.

"You're fine," never got the best of her.