recovery – Diary of the Broken Ballerina

Dearly Forgotten

I didn’t write this for the majority.

I didn’t write this for the generation of entitled personas mimicking the human form.

You know the ones that ridicule you for being different because what the majority says goes- and they created this dystopia where anything that is different is not welcome in this bar, store, school, park, bus, train, sidewalk, church, earth.

I wrote this for the vast generation of have nots.

Those who picked the shorter stick by proxy-

Via decisions that were not of their own-

Decisions chosen by those who chose not to try harder-

Decisions chosen by those who chose to not clear a safe path for us.

I say this with pride- We are the have nots.

We are the ones that were trained to endure walking barefoot- down roads littered with shards of fractured dreams – and promises-

With jagged edges that are inoculated with the past transgressions of others and we suffered from the subsequent wounds that festered deep into our soul-

We were eager to wash away our sins by running to get baptized in muddy water and drinking spoiled grape juice with stale crackers- because the silver lining is not always sparkling, fresh and new.

And we struggled to keep our mind free of gangrene, which is rampant because we have to trudge through the unsanitary conditioning strategies of society- you see-

Decay of the mind starts with the censorship of our thoughts, emotions and truths.

So I urge you to continue to make as much noise as you can-

Our voices in -unison can break many glass ceilings throughout eternity.

This is for the have nots-remember- Losing is never an option

My One Ton Life

Every day I disrobe the tangible elements of life and stand on the broken, unbalanced scale of society and stare in the mirror and weigh myself.

Some days I scrutinize each tear as they fall, imagining that they are shooting stars that could grant my wish of taking away the weight of some of these burdens.

Even when my tears filled forty gallon pails, I still weighed a ton.

Everyday I disrobe the tangible elements of life and stand on this broken, unbalanced scale of society and stare in the mirror and weigh myself.

This weight is too heavy for the farce called Reality TV.

No network is brave enough to share the real faces of you and me.

Fate hands us the most beautifully wrapped trials and tribulations as heavy and deadly as the atomic bomb, and lovingly lays them across our chest, forcing the air right out of our lungs but we still have to stand up straight and function as if this weight does not exist.

We still have to stand up straight and walk as if our body doesn’t ache from the pressure of depression compressing our soul.

I find myself unconsciously, robotically sucking in the extra weight so I can fit into the different molds of the personas the outside world befriends and society accepts.

The mother mold, the wife mold, the friend mold, the model employee mold- there is rarely anytime for me to wear my- just me mold.

I suck in the extra weight so I can fit into these molds that have no windows, so at times my creativity becomes stagnant and my soul begins to drown in the puddles of sweat formed by anxiety.

I suck in the extra weight, hoping it doesn’t show as I greet you with a warm hello, or hug or smile.

I discovered that there is no surgery that can cure this weight problem.

So I get my therapy from poetry.

Each poem encapsulates the burdens from my soul into verses that recycle them into something meaningful.

This poem is for you.

This is for the 280 million people in the world that suffer in silence on a daily basis.

This is for you.

I am you.

Everyday we disrobe the tangible elements of life.

Everyday we stand on the broken, unbalanced scale of society.

Everyday we stare in the mirror and weigh ourselves.

This poem is for you.

I see you.

I feel you.

I write these words with hope that they penetrate the manufactured molds of society and let you know that you can do this.

First I Tried to Walk in the Footsteps of My Father (part.2)

There I stood alone.
The younger version of me was still there too.
She sat down, crossed legged in the middle of my fathers timeline and looked up at me and asked-
“When will he come back?”
Five words, as heavy as bricks, thrown at me
by my own innocence.
They knocked me off course and of course-
I knew the answer, but did I want to disappoint myself again?
Then I remembered.
The superpower that all children have is hope.
In the middle of distress-
In the middle of nowhere or nothing-
In the middle of this burning forest-
A child can sit and still see the possibility of something re-emerging, alive, from fire and ashes.
She asked me again, this time pulling my left hand harder, “When will he come back?”
I stood her up gently and said, “When people lose their path ,sometimes it’s better that they start off at a new point, a place that was different from where they went off track to begin with. I can’t tell you exactly when, but I know where you can find him again.”
I pointed in the opposite direction of the road towards the future.
Her eyes – were so bright.
So, Bright.
Illuminated with love, hope, dreams- so innocent-
And for a moment, just a moment – I remembered seeing through them.
I remembered how differently the world looked.
My senses were heightened.
I could hear the beauty in life’s chaos.
Despair was a symphony of violins playing in B minor, weeping in unison carrying away tears, pain and prayers to the clouds.
The cracks in the sidewalks were strings on a blues guitar and the footsteps of the crowd played a mix of polyrhythmic jazz octaves , sometimes in A minor-
and I was enamored by it all.
I remembered me.
I hugged my youth , I hugged her and watched as she melted into me.
I had locked her out and there she was- just patiently waiting to return to me.
I was so lost in my thoughts that it took me a while to notice someone was watching from afar.
I walked towards the figure only to be stopped by large pieces of glass in the road.
I had to carefully step in between the pieces of dangerous debris, I had to climb through bushes with sharp thorns.
I thought to myself this road was not meant to be traveled and someone tried their best to hide it.
Then I lost my breath after being kicked in the stomach by instinct.
This was the path of my mother.
I was now walking in the footsteps of my mother.
I tried to get to her.
I was bleeding.
I was in pain .
I had to get to her.
She yelled out, “Please , don’t try to come closer! ”.
Three large rows of barbed wire fencing kept me from fully reaching her.
I watched this younger version of my mother as she sat down on the dirt road, hugging her knees to her chest with one arm and burying something with her bare hand.
Her dress was torn, her feet were covered in mud-
Her face looked like it was permanently tattooed with streaks of tears.
The more she wiped her face, the more streaks would appear and her tears were invisible.
I dropped to my knees and said – “Don’t you want to be free?”
She looked at me and said, “I was left here on purpose. I had to hide in order to survive. I am almost finished burying my feelings, because I don’t want to hurt anymore. This is the only way that I can make it through that path that you just came from.”
I got so mad.
I stood up and yelled-, “ What about love? How are you going to love, how are you going to care- if you keep it all buried here?”
She replied, “Love hurts! Love hurt me. My father hurt me. This world hurts. Nothing is safe.”
I yelled back,” Then you will just hurt others. You will hurt the ones that don’t deserve it. You will destroy your own flesh and blood.”
She stood up and grabbed the barbed wire fence with both of hands and then she showed her palms to me.
There was no blood.
Not one drop.
She said, “ Everything was taken from me, down to the blood that ran in my veins.”
She stared at me in silence and then said,” You look like me , you remind me of someone I saw in the mirror many,many years ago. You look like someone I should know, and if this is so- Please make sure that the curse of this path stops with you. You came from that direction so you know what part of me is left.”
With tears in my eyes I watched her fade into the burning forest.
In a rage I screamed out all the pain I endured for years and years.
It echoed through the burning forest and blew out all of the flames.
Engulfed in all the smoke, I just stood there and cried, because for the first time I understood that my path was my own and It was a path that I was meant to travel alone.
As I approached the start of my path, a woman stood before me.
She was an elder spirit that I only saw from time to time in my dreams.
Her form changes but the warmth in her eyes and smile are always the same.
She put her hand on my shoulder and pointed to the sky and said – child, this is where you came from.
First, I heard the devil betting god and all the other angels that I would not succeed and then
I watched these beautiful beings conversate while they crafted me with the stars.
They said we won’t give her regular eyes of man- we will give her the eyes of a guardian angel.
This way she will always see the beauty in the rough and the love in the swap of hate and hope hidden under despair.
We will gift her the power of an imagination that never dulls even as she ages. She will be special, she will be strong and she will carry the messages that need to be heard and felt by the souls of all those in need.
And I saw this light pass on to me in the womb and I watched my body form and my heart beating and my first cry when I was born.
I continued to walk down my timeline and the memory of the beatings I endured didn’t hurt as much, and the verbal abuse daming my existence didn’t cut as deep.
Because now I understood my purpose was never to suffer , my purpose was to shed light and conquer the darkness.
And I only know this because first I had to walk in the footprints of my father.

The Message in the Bottle

I am the remnant of an empty bottle-
Forgotten biofilm that mutated under the pressure of a toxic environment and I flourished- even with little to no light.
I emerged from the bottle, reborn, rebranded as a genie.
I am the genie of the common man, woman and child.
A master contortionist, skilled at finding comfort in any space.
Here I stay, hidden in things that will never catch the eyes of aristocracy.
I prefer to be the diamond in the rough, the fallen angel who is able to fly with one broken wing while holding the hand of men and women while we trip on the same concrete stairs of life.
If only we could all witness the beauty and power in transcending the eyes and using our souls for viewing the world.
I am the remnant of the empty bottle.
While inside I draw the images of my dreams on the walls in star dust and bring light to my small space, I become lost in my personal galaxy, and the sounds of shooting stars, eventually lull me to sleep.
I am the genie of the common man, woman and child.
People seem surprised when I tell them that we all are able to grant wishes.
I have given the gift of long walks.
I have given the gift of silent, strong, warm embraces.
I have given the gift of holding the hand of strangers while they are in the midst of taking their last few breaths.
I have given the gift of spending my last few dollars on a happy meal for a hungry child, standing on a busy NYC street corner, wearing a mask of shame as he watched his mother begging for money for her next drug fix.
Me having nothing did not impede my need to give him something, even if it was just ten minutes to imagine feeling like a child with a mother who just wanted to make him smile.
I am the remnant of the empty bottle.
I leave one bottle and flow into the next, like the fresh ocean breeze.
I am the message in thousands of bottles lost at sea, hoping to reach those intended to receive solace in the form of a simple poem.
I am the genie of the common man, woman and child – and I do not wish to be free.
All that I ask is for you to continue to leave your empty bottles out for me.

A Poets Pantry

I remember when I took my first bite of heartbreak.

I didn’t see ill intentions hiding underneath the perfect layer of milk chocolate-because I was only dipping the tips of my fingers in the icing.

I was enticed to take a bite, and that was when I first experienced the taste of malice.

The bitterness hugged on to each of my taste buds, like the barnacle colonies on the hull of my self esteem’s sinking ship.

I couldn’t eat for days.

I remember laying in a fetal position, retching in my sleep.

Everything reminded me of him- and I was sick to my stomach over and over again.

I thought I knew what the scent and taste of love was, but my senses were so immature.

Eventually, this taught me to observe more.

I have a habit of reading people like nutrition labels- because I need to know what your value is to me.

I need to know the repercussions of adding you to my diet on a daily basis.

Do you increase my risk of heart disease by clogging my arteries with false friendship, fake forevers and parasitic tendencies that hardens not only my heart but the vessels that lead in and out of it?

I want to know what percentage is organic-natural, real, wholesome, fresh, light.

Are you a superfood- packed with dense nutrients?

You see, I am a glutton.

If you invite me to a buffet, I will pile up my plate with fulfilling, perfectly seasoned conversations that have been marinating in this frigid world.

I prefer to leave my food for thought out in the cold – on the back porches of society where other poets also thrive.

It’s a place where we can have a better view of the stars as we allow our brain cells to marinate into a savory fusion of enigma, dredged in understanding about the beauty in our differences.

Differences that amalgamate into an exquisite delicacy that we deliver in the forms of verses.

Bon Appetite!

First I Tried to Walk in the Footsteps of My Father (Part One)

I had to ingest a few extra ibuprofen, with hopes that my words would be less inflammatory-

then my spirit whispered go ahead and chase them down with that leftover coquito mixed with your cup of coffee.

My tortured soul knew that when the liquid truth is caffeinated- it would help me feel warmer in this cold realm, speak clearer and see better –

because this journey is perilous but necessary to help me find myself and for me to understand you and for you to understand others.

So, I walked and walked – backwards down my timeline until I started to smell smoke, and my instinct told me that I would soon find the path of my parents.

I had to stop when I saw the five-year-old version of me screaming at the side of the road.

The forest is on fire!

The forest is on fire and it’s destroying all of our family trees!

These strange flames burn from the roots up.

Some of our culture was born from slash and burn agriculture, which is supposed to cultivate the land for planting trees with strong roots instead it proliferated fields and fields of deferred dreams which sprouted an invasive species of long-double stemmed plants.

I am the direct descendent of weeds that flowered like dandelions, and when the winds of fate pursed her lips together and blew –

their cotton ball seeds became windborne and settled between concrete slabs and eventually they germinated me.

I continued on until I came upon a forked path.

On the left, I saw a younger version of my father opening up a pack of Marlboros and he didn’t recognize me as his daughter.

He said, “Hey you look like someone I should know.” and he asked me for a light.

We both laughed at his joke, as we were surrounded by fire, and he lit the cigarette from glowing embers in the atmosphere.

I could tell that’s where my humor and sarcasm came from.

I asked, “Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and accompany me on this walk?”

He walked to the rhythm of salsa music and I loved hearing him talk.

My father’s family migrated to New York from Puerto Rico.

My father never knew his father and my father’s mother was his grandmother because his mother was a young woman who was still trying to figure out life with 5 kids and counting before the age of 29.

And when his grandmother passed, my father said life became a blur of different city skylines visualized from the seat of L train rides as he traveled from a Brooklyn sofa to Brooklyn couch using a plastic bag from the bodega as his luggage carrier on a week-to-week basis- never knowing what to expect next.

I saw him beginning to fade and I grabbed his arm and I asked him, “If you had a daughter what would you name her?”

He took one last, long drag from his cigarette and flicked the butt to the ground-

and the smile that spread across his face infiltrated my heart and the parts that were stone started to soften-

He said,” I will name her Mariana. Mariana Soto- Mari for Mother Mary-Mother of Souls and Ana for the name of the women that I loved and whose heart I broke.”

And he faded away, lost in the burning forest of addiction for 20 years.

“Ana” is not the name of my mother and I am okay with that.

He named me after the true desire in his heart and when he looked at me, he saw the purity that he lost.

In the quest to understand me, I had to understand where I came from.

So, first I tried to walk in the footsteps of my father.

Long Time No See

The ink in my pen ran out a long time ago.

Now I transcribe each noun, adjective and verb with my own blood.

The paper soaks up my pain and transforms it into riddles of similes and metaphors-

A confusion of emotions.

Confusion is what creates chaos, and you need chaos to invoke a revolution- and revolution is the never ending fight for the survival of our identity.

Sometimes I am afraid to write, because when my creative ports open, the unstoppable flood gates spills truths that drown others and I become an accessory to murder.

Turbulent waves- rip tides of secrets and painful memories seep into the fibers of lined paper and feed hidden seeds that sprout the language of the soul- a poem.

I stopped writing for a long time because when I do- I can feel my poorly healed scars start to dehisce and the pain taunts me as it bangs against the bars of my caged heart and the fallen angel that lives within me starts screaming to speak.

Mute.

You can only press the button but so many times before it breaks and your only choice is to listen and turn the volume up.

What is your soul saying?

I used to wear my heart on my sleeve but it kept getting impaled by flying debris from the tornados of fate-

But still I moved forward-

And when the barbed wire from the fences of life kept nicking my skin-

I still fought to progress-

and I had to jump so damn high to surmount the hurdles of trials and tribulations, hurdles which at times bruised my shins- over and over again

-but I still staggered on.

Wading through various cesspools of shitty circumstances, trying to stop and smell the roses proved to be challenging- yet still possible.

People just don’t understand that when home becomes hell the streets become heaven.

I’m sure that I’ve shared a drink and ate dinner with the devil many times.

I gambled it all away to the point where the only thing I had left was half a mustard seed in my back left pocket.

And in a swamp of decay- I was able to use it to grow faith.

And from that small patch of faith I was able to replant hope.

I had to stand tall and blow away the clouds of shame that hung over me in order to let the sun break through.

And man did my forest bloom.

My brain sprouted vines and carried me back to civilization where I continue to strive.

I allowed my face to be smothered with a pillow held by childhood trauma for way too long.

And you know what- it feels good to hear my voice again.

It feels good to be back.

Hello, It’s been a while.