I

He tells me He knows me better than I know myself.

            and maybe the glare from empty beer bottles can predict the future. And if He knows me better than I know myself, then maybe it’s good i don’t call.

 

            He calls me sweetie pie, reminds me i’m pretty. Reminisces on moments before i could remember. How proud He was to know i was a girl. How He could balance me in His forearm. He does this when he loves me.

 

                        When He resents me, He reminds me i live in a sheltered bubble. i’m cold hearted and don’t know how to love. He doesn’t call me sweetie pie but by a name he forgot the meaning of.

 

A name i tried to decipher myself and came up with;

 

“I am beautiful”.

 

my name lost in translation and i will ever know the actual definition. But i can make up fairytales and play pretend.

II

Maybe this pretend world will help me fall into the illusion that i am beautiful even if my naked body screams and echoes protest from its mountains and valley’s.

 

            i try to fill the canyons with cement. Bulldoze the mountains and smile at the black band around me.

 

                        No more echoes to bounce off and haunt me.

III

No more echoes. Only the smell of burned flesh to remind me i am someone i don’t want to be. But i feel the burn marks. Feel his palm, his dirty fingers on me.

Pressed into my chest so deeply you wrapped yourself around my heart. And i’m trembling harder with fear than when Papi tells me, He knows me. you tell me i’m beautiful; chained your arms together around my waist tightly. you wont let me go. Force your face on mine cutting my vocal chords so i can’t scream. you tell me, “Aqui no pasa nada.” But my hot wet eyes are screaming otherwise. you whisper i’ve never been with a real man. But i’ve never been with anyone. you tell me how pretty i am, pull me closer in an attempt to make me fall in love with you. you wont let me go. Force your face on mine cutting my vocal chords so icv3 can’t scream. But i can still think and wish. And i think and wish i wasn’t she. That way you never would’ve fantasized and sexualized me…

                                                       

        August 17, 2016 wouldn’t have to exist.

IV

But it does and i’m reminded everyday when i stand in front of the full length mirror.

            Vulnerable. Exposed.

 

            i stare at my reflection wondering who stands before me. i’ve seen them for 19 years but i still don’t know who they are. i watch them decay before me. Crumble to the floor and lie there.

                        A pile of curves and rounded folds.

 

            Is this who i am? Is this who i will always be perceived to be?

V

She tells me i have my mothers face and a part of me smiles and the other, breaks down at this fact.

My mothers face is warm and inviting, aged from all the stress and trauma from You. pink lips curved upward towards the heavens, reminding me constantly in her belief in god. How she keeps me in her prayers.

                       

Soft coffee colored eyes, light and sweet, embraced by long black arms…

 

            But her eyes struggle to carry the weight of a family she

            watched deconstruct. Struggle to hold the burden of her

            child’s hospital bills because they aren’t ‘happy’. Because

            the container which locked all the blue, broke open like

            Pandora’s Box, because it was too much. Because ‘they’

            Couldn’t sweep it under the carpet and forget.

                                                           

She struggles to attempt to support her son fueled by resent towards her. Struggles because that’s her first and the first one she witnessed fall victim to Him. First time she knew she had no voice.

 

My mother struggles to try and hold this ‘family’ together. Paints an image of a loving husband and healthy children in her mind. Detaching to keep herself sane.

                                               

The weight is too much. It sags down under her warm eyes.

                                               

The water keeps seeping through no matter how hard she squeezes her hands together.mj

She wants to save a typhoon.

VI

i was a little girl.

 

Spent years drawing myself in skirts, smiling at being called a pretty girl, a precious girl.

 

Spent years praying to gain these canyons and mountains to erode onto my body. Spent years praying to ‘god’ to give my life to someone else because typhoons can’t stop brewing inside me.

 

            i was a little girl.

But muddy hands found their way on me. But comparisons were too much, clothes were too much, erosion and weather were too much, Sexualization was too much. Pretty Precious Girls were too much.

 

 

i was too much.

            i was a little girl.

 

i don’t recognize her now.

                       

                                                                        Only them.