This was my response to prompt #25:A thing your life has in excess
I still get mad when it rains though
I lie to myself about my lack of love The truth is that love is everywhere to be found My mom who calls to check in on me My tia who sends me Buenos Días videos My coworkers who put up with my many moods My kids who tell me “I got you ma” when I can’t figure out the latest household gadget My friends who listen to me without judgment Love is everywhere I am and it’s time for me to radically accept it
This was in response to prompt #28: The person you’re always happy to see
me and my youngest son
My son is my light during my darkest of days He’s a burst of an infectious kind of of good energy Maybe it’s because he got the best of me he was loved even before he was thought of and when he was born he was more and everything I dreamed of he was a much sought out rainbow after the worst of my storms
Christmas sounds like Mariah Carey and Wham competing to blast their christmas songs from my radio or a Christmas Story playing on the tv Christmas looks likes the crooked christmas tree almost tipping over with an excessive amount of ornaments and way too many gifts under the tree christmas taste like mashed potatoes with ham and alcoholic eggnog to swallow uncomfortable conversations about politics christmas smells like candles burning with scents called christmas tree farm christmas feels like happiness with everything in my life and the warmth and magic of my little family
Faulkner wrote about her ancestors She stood like a pillar of strength between her mother and daughter She stood strong as both of them held her arms that were their life jackets as they drowned in endless sorrows Tears silently fell from her face as her father laid in his closed home And the reverend went on about him being in a better place And her strength did not falter, She let her loved ones hold on tight while she tried to blink away tears , She swallowed her pain and absorbed the pain from those around her She wasn’t just strong for her mother and daughter, but she was a goddess of strength among the mere mortals around her that wept
I wrote this poem in January of 2020. Maybe I was mad at the patriarchy or just feeling weighed down by the expectations that society has on women. I know that for me, it has been a huge burden at times to constantly keep up an appearance that I am put together balanced woman even if I am falling apart.
I wrote this poem in 2016 when I was reflecting on how different my children were. At the time, my middle son was going through a difficult time and it was hard to deal with.
my 3 sons in July of 2021
Living with my three children
Is like living in three different countries
My oldest would be Singapore
With strict rules and laws,
He hates flaws in himself
And others and is unforgiving
It’s challenging to live in
Singapore
My middle child would be a war torn ridden country
I wrote this poem in December of 2016 after my almost love affair with death on December 5th. It’s strange how aside from my journal entries from that month, I hardly remember that month. I just remember feeling so broken inside and like a failure after that happened that it was so hard to get up every morning. I do know that writing saved me during that time because I started journaling way more consistently. I would learn years later after being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder that up to 10 percent of people with BPD die by suicide. Five years later, I’m glad that I had people by my side that prevented me from becoming one in ten. I’m glad that afterwards, I was able to slowly come back from thiseven if I was mostly depressed the year after and it was a fight to get up every single day.
For more information about the high risk of BPD and Suicide, here is a link from Psychology Today with info about it:
I wrote this poem in fall of 2005 when I was feeling overwhelmed by my responsibilities of being a mother, a girlfriend, a student and a worker. As usual at that time, I took on too much and was trying to be everything to everyone. One trait of BPD that I’ve carried throughout the years is over extending myself sometimes to my detriment in order to make other people happy.
I wrote this poem in 2004 about my oldest son. Even though, I was 17 when I had him, I always tried to be the best mother for him. I worked to support him since I was 18, he was one of my biggest motivations for going to college, and even though I was extremely insecure as a young mom, I learned to advocate and fight for him to get the services and therapies he needed when he was diagnosed with autism.
I wrote this poem in 2006 about my tumultuous relationship with writing. I love to write and it’s saved me more times than I can count. However, I tend to beat myself up if I’m not writing enough.
Instead of tears from eyes that long to spill, I will spill words onto these pages. Words that make sense, Words that don’t make sense, Many are in fact nonsense I will let my emotions, the wind And my surroundings guide me until I fill up these pages Full of nonsense, prose, Poetry, ideas, and everything I can think of This will be a new phase this new phase will be full of promise and potential And it will also be full of what I hope is the inspiration that leads me to share my relationship to the world. this will be my fourth baby Another one I will nurse and raise until it is As beautiful and complete as my real life ones. This is the promise I make to my pathetic little beast.
I wrote this in 2006 after I was reflecting my first years of being a mother to my eldest child who I had at 17. Becoming a mother at such a young age didn’t make me the best parent and at times I still tried to act my age and party a lot even though I was a parent. It used to eat me up inside but I’ve come to terms that I did the best I could under the circumstances.