ancestor, ancestor- which alcohol goes best with making shitty life decisions ancestors says, not the PBR, not the michelob ultra light, itβs too basic of an energy for the kind of epic shitty life decisions you tend to make donβt reach for the margarita wine either, too obvious, too much of a cliche and you already have plenty of them in your poetry Go for the Guiness six pack make your shitty life decisions with some English class since most of your terrible decisions tend to include some asshole whose ancestors are colonizer Englishmen
once upon a time I collected lovers like Pokemon cards desperate for attention, desperate for love desperate to cover myself up with another soul once upon a time I collected lovers like Pokemon cards I didnβt have an identity, I didnβt have any self worth I didnβt have any self love Once upon a time I collected lovers like Pokemon cards to find validation in my existence to use compliments to feed my ego to lose myself in someone else once upon a time I collected lovers like Pokemon cards I was undiagnosed with BPD I was incredibly insecure I was following the script prescribed to me once upon a time I collected lovers like Pokemon cards and that was a long time ago and now itβs been 3 years since Iβve been in a relationship almost 2 years in my journey of celibacy and 6 months since Iβve been declared officially single once upon a time I collected lovers like Pokemon cards and now I block anyone who tries to get near me and want to vomit when I interact with my crush
for almost three years Iβve been waiting for the next guy to appear as some kind of hero, as some kind of reward for all of my effort Iβve put into myself and the life Iβve built Subconsciously I did this Even as I publicly roared about being empowered on my own I still wanted someone to be my sanctuary to lay my love in And I wrote, manifested, schemed, flirted got obsessed with men were just meant to be friends Thinking, gosh, if I hang on long enough, heβll come around this might work out but today I discovered the only hero for me is the woman in the mirror who still manages to get out of bed even on the bad days when sheβs too tired to function when sheβs exhausted by all of it
nail on the coffin on the future I wanted no prince charming no house with the white picket fence instead I stare down at the barrel of poverty trying to find a glimmer of who I used to be among my many forgotten dreams
last time I had my last first kiss it was wasted on a middle age scorpio I wore a cute summer dress with red lipstick along with my feminine charm I didnβt have to lay it on thick for him to desire me for him to want to kiss me he wouldβve fuck me I hadnβt been on my period his hands roamed almost every inch of my body as if it belong to him for the 5 minutes we made out while I dissociated and pretended I was somewhere else I was numb and devoid of feeling anything Am I even a person? He said things about how I was so hot and sexy and how sad it was that couldnβt screw me And I laughed flirtatiously following the script Iβve had since I could remember and I felt no desire or any pleasure if anything I was repulsed by him, by myself hating how even at 40, I was still pulling the same bullshit since I was 16 making myself an object of desire for me to play with and then something snapped in me that day a couple of hours after that date I sent him a snap along with all the other 7 dudes I was entertaining and keeping as options the same message, βIβm sorry, Iβm not in a place to date or even to have men as friends, I wish you the bestβ it was hard as I had always been addicted to menβs attention and validation but something told me it was time to switch the narrative even though I knew it would be lonely
you were a dead end street that I didnβt see until it unraveled me Until it was too late and I didnβt want to turn around and kept going and eventually I crashed in the most magnificent and catastrophic of ways and I burned and burned until I was ashes and rose up in the most spectacular rebirth anyone had witnessed since Jesus
being with you was a form of self harm it was another symptom of my mental illness It was me living with my unhealed alcoholic daddy issues it was the worst version of me trying to find some kind of semblance of love to fill the void with whatever, even if that love looked toxic, brought out the worst in me, berated and assaulted me still stupidly I went back to you and accepted you in my life over and over again even with delusional daydreams in the back of my mind that if I kept you in my life long enough eventually youβd change and one day weβd get it right but all you ever did was disappoint me over and over again but this last undoing of us is the one and good riddance for that because at 43, iβm too fucking old to waste my time on fuck bois who canβt show an ounce of respect and dignity
for a while you were an a puzzle to me always so mysterious always so guarded never talked about your past even as I overshared my trauma and while it got tiring I still kept on trying to get you to open up my mami didnβt raise a quitter but nothing I did ever worked you could never bring yourself to be vulnerable
I pay tribute to the women who came before me women who sacrificed so my parents could exist my mami who had to leave behind her culture, traditions, and language to give me a better life to make sure I grow up safe and well educated and taught me what strength and resilience means as she worked long days to make ends meet as she showed initiative to move our family forward and with her example I was able to follow it except I change it up some to live a life full of love, community and creativity
always restless and wild from the start nothing could contain me or dim my spark leg braces, overprotective parents it didnβt matter I always found a way to make trouble, to investigate, always too curious for my own good and too dramatic and emotional for mostly everyone always good at making people uncomfortable sometimes itβs a curse, sometimes itβs a blessing canβt change this part of myself I have, am and will always be like this
at 17, the pregnant bride to be got a telegram from her groom sorry, but Iβm betrothed to another and am getting married at gun point maybe it was the heavy feeling of rage or her aries nature and hormones the jilted bride with a silent fury went to her closet and took out her ostentatiously beaded wedding dress and with matches in her hand she went outside and set fire to it in front of the family home one of the younger siblings saw the insanity as the bride stared at it mesmerized by fire that grew and grew she walked towards it all sense of reality gone from her not hearing the screams from her abuela who ran towards her and just before the bride step foot in the fire la abuela shook her and slapped her across the face until the bride reacted, let out a loud wail heard across the farmland and fainted
a wave of nostalgia hits me and I almost drown in memories it takes everything in me to stay grounded in my present it takes everything in me to not allow my trauma to cloud the life Iβm currently trying to build
before I knew who I was I used to be oh so charming to men always agreeing with them, mirroring their interests, stroking their egos and other things and giving them easy access to me I never used much discernment in this my standard were 3000 leagues under the sea So I allowed any mediocre joe who showed me the least bit of attention into my universe and I allowed this to happen for 26 years making myself fodder for these mediocre and insecure joes who left the minute I show then a bit of the fire I held within and everytime they left, I was destroyed and like a tarotβs fool I keep repeating this nonsense until a few years ago, I had enough when the last of the joes said I was too much for him and it was the final straw that broke my romantic girl spirit for a while I was touch and go with my sanity but I rose and rose like the Peruvian diosa I had always been and in horror I realized laying in bed with mediocrity only damaged me, it was time to change this narrative and slowly I recovered from the latest love tragedy and starting writing my own love story one where alone Iβm enough and the protagonist and never again have to tone down who I am or hide the fire and magic that resides in me