Life – Diary of the Broken Ballerina

I take it back…..

Bloganuary writing prompt

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

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I would uninvent the permanence of time.

The saying “in time it will get better” would be no more.

Time would not fly by like the cold winter air kissing my cheek-

reminding me with its caressing sting that my scars still hurt.

I would make time stand still so I could walk around all of my memories , daydreams, laughs and beautiful conversations that I encounter like a visit at a museum.

Taking in the smells, sounds, and kind words that I yearn to hear-

The voices and laughs that I miss daily.

Time does not heal the pain that has anchored its roots and flourishes like weeds.

Time is a reminder that everything we encounter, everything we love, everything we embrace is just borrowed for the time being.

Stop letting it fly by so easily.

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

Sangre

Yesterday I drove through a thick, blinding fog.
I hoped it would lead me into a portal that would take me to the places that I visit in my dreams.
The places where unfamiliar faces greet me with familiar smiles and hugs.
Here they remind me that eternity is a real place.
This fog caused me to levitate in memories, and before I knew it –
There I stood.
Lost in my mental Labyrinth, which shape shifts with my emotions-
filled with dark alleyways lined with street lamps with flickering bulbs that hold the pieces of the souls that still continue to guide me with the light of their memory and love.
I soon found myself in a house of mirrors.
As I walked down the forgotten corridors- I started to break every mirror because I didn’t want to see the reflections of me-
Images of my past – the puppet that I used to be.
The wooden girl without a cricket for a conscious- who just wanted to be free.
I painfully stepped on every fractured piece of me – as I remembered that I was
a shattered girl living in a shadow world, trying to hunt for the sun- barefoot on hot city concrete, standing in line waiting to get baptized in the river of illegally open fire hydrants- which was the only time I felt relief.
I always watched where the water went as it trickled down the grates into the belly of the beast.
Wondering if it all ends up in the same place that the blood went when it spilled onto the city streets?
I was the forgotten Tarzan, a child raised by sewer rats, swinging through life’s jungle holding on for dear life to the lines from discarded children’s bibles and National Geographic magazines that I saved from trash piles and used them to build paper houses for me to hide in, while I treated my wounds alone.
Lifes lessons built a warrior like no other.
I am a walking, talking enigma.
My soul is grotesquely disfigured with scars and missing parts, but the one thing that was never touched was my heart.
My blood type is the rarest of them all, not A , not B, Not AB, not O-
It is light, it is heat, it is energy, it is unapologetically me.
When I get hit by the fists of life, this rare emulsion flows freely from my busted lip and bleeding nose onto paper – and dries into fragments that form love notes from my soul reminding you and I that anything can be conquered with love.

Lost Letter To Heaven

It’s days like this when I miss you the most.
When the sun is out and the air is still cold.
When the trees are half barren, yet the buds are beginning to grow.
When the ice starts to melt and the water starts to flow.
You are no longer in pain, but my heart still feels the blows.
So I close my eyes and I reminisce about the beautiful years you spent watching me grow.
You were my hero and you taught me how to fly.
I remember seeing so many colors in the sky- my mind is forever stained with vibrant hues of orange, pink and blood red.
I remember you taking me to the top floor of a building – just to let me look out of a large window – so that I could observe the sky after a thunder storm and watch a rainbow form.

I remember imagining that the rainbow lead to a world filled with teddy bears with magical powers.
I remember my belief in other realms waiting for me to explore.
These early memories are my comfort.
Comfort is me falling asleep on the shoulder of my hero as
my father carries me in his arms after our trip to the circus.
His cologne and the smell of his fresh leather coat-
I take a breath in now, like I can still smell his fresh leather coat.
I miss him.
I miss those aromas of life.
My heart aches as I remember the feelings it gave me.
I remember the feeling of pure love.
I remember being engulfed by the aura of happiness.
I remember the love in your eyes.
I’m honored to be your daughter and I hope I made you proud.
I promised you in your last few days that I wouldn’t let you down.
You became my guardian angel and I know you’re still here.
Physically gone, but your spirit is still near.
Anything beautiful I see, I whisper thank you for sharing.
Thank you for reminding me that this world is still caring.
I know you have your hand on my shoulder during the nights when I cry.
I can hear your voice saying, “Listen sister, wipe those eyes.”
You prepared me the best way that you could,
and I held your hand like any daughter should.
I whispered in your ear, dad just let go, I will be okay, you will see.
You held on for days because I know you were worried about me.
I was a rebel in the streets, trying to find my way.
No real home, adrift floating, trying to find my place.
It still hurts so bad.
It doesn’t get better with time.
That hole is left burning deep on the inside.
I had to share this with you, because I know we might all share the same kind of pain.
You have to keep going, your life matters the same.
We are here for a purpose and we have to find our way.
Our loved ones are all shining lights from above, which helps guide us down the dark paths of life which we all trudge.
Dad, your love is what keeps my heart warm, at times when it’s cold.
Your values I instill in my kids, you will see.
If I had a genie and he granted one wish for me-
The only thing I would wish is to hear your voice say how proud you are of me.
Or to smell your cologne along with one last, long strong hug.
To the man I adore the most in the world, I’m sending kisses and hugs to heaven above.
Love daddy’s little girl.

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!

Gifts from the Uninvited

A poet’s words are the unexpected visitors that arrive without notice.
The poet’s words are intruders of the soul.
They find their way up and over the walls we build, walls that we think can’t be breached.
They break the locks on the gates that we secured with chains that we think can’t ever be broken.
They ring the doorbell- they bang on the windows and whisper- “I know you hear me.”
Knock.
“Let me in.”
Knock! Knock!
“I know you are there!”
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Eventually we have to deal with the flood from our inner wishing wells-
Which regurgitate after choking on the bones of reality and spew out long forgotten thoughts, prayers, emotions, memories-
and the people around us can’t see we are constantly drowning.
Poets are constantly drenched in the ink that oozes from our mind.
We dry off by rolling around on paper which soaks up and reveals the vulnerable parts of us.
I was standing ankle deep in my thoughts, playing catch with my son,
when I realized that I was playing catch with myself.
I tried to step back- out of the thought –
but I lost my footing and fell in with my head barely hovering above the surface.
Then I heard my soul say-
He is a transposed, better version of you.
I then realized that I am playing catch with the innocence that I lost a long time ago.
An innocence that I had forgotten about, and here it stands right in front of me .
His laughter was the laughter that my soul had forgotten about.
His laughter awoke my soul and she broke through the brick wall of my consciousness and took a front row seat to see.
I just continued to tread in these beautiful thoughts as I watched a part of my soul reliving the beautiful youth that was not afforded to her.
You see, a poet’s words are the unexpected visitors that arrive without notice.
The poet’s words are the souls intruders.
Getting through the walls we build that we think can’t be penetrated.
Breaking the locks on the gates that we secured with chains that we think can’t ever be broken.
So when you hear them knocking, let them in, invite them to the table and take the time to hear what they have to say.

Holistic Medicine

How do we continue to endure this sad happiness?
We wake up physically free, mentally confined by what society deems as the norm.
We are dying to live.
The global warming caused by emissions from hate melts the souls of many- and the remnants trickle down the cracks in society
and collect
and collect
and collect
overflowing the clogged gutter-
until they form stagnant muddy puddles of man, that we trudge through and leave footprints that generations follow-
and they follow-
like blindfolded orphans lost in a modern jungle chasing and surviving on the molding bread crumbs that were left, because when you are starving for a purpose, consuming something is better than nothing.
Humanity is poisoned.
What is the cure?
A poet’s words.
We see the universe differently.
When a poet walks their feet never touch the ground.
We levitate on metaphors and we visualize the world in similes.
It is never just raining outside.
It’s heaven’s angels pouring out bucket after bucket of our tears and prayers that burdened the roof of God’s palace until it bore holes right through and started to flood.
It is not just a heat wave.
It’s the draft from the devil’s bedroom window that he left open as he sits- eavesdropping on our inner demons discussing whose soul is in jeopardy.
We are the imperfect perfections that humanity needs.
We are the vulnerable.
We are the brave.
Who else can stand on stage, undress and show each scar, each bruise, each blemish of our soul to strangers?
A poet.
Our imperfections are a superpower that grants us the gift of always finding the perfect words for imperfect situations.
A poets words are not shiny and new.
A poets words are like old clothing, the hand-me-downs, the washed and worn, tattered and torn, blood stained evidence of our imperfections that perfectly tell our story.
Imperfections that give our words purpose.
Imperfections that make us stand out from the masses.
The masses who choose to continue to stand in life’s assembly line trying to fit into a mold that is two sizes too small.
Conforming is not an option for us poets.
We are the last warriors left and our words repel labels.
Our words ignite flames.
Our words burn barriers.
Our words bash in the glass ceilings.
Collectively our words form a ladder so we can all ascend-
And we do it so respectfully, so eloquently and so unapologetically-
Like-
fuck you- society
Creative minds like ours should be feared.
We are the imperfect perfections that humanity needs.

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.

A Glitch in the Matrix

Disconnect.
Eject.
Reject this system.
Unplug yourself from man’s manufactured mainframe.
Their reality and our reality are not the same.
They say we are free-
But we are still tethered by so many things.
Look at us on display!
We are just mangled up robotic marionettes, intertwined by corporate wirings that send signals for us to drown ourselves while trying to catch the big fish in polluted data streams-
and we are so distracted as we flip through the mindless memes – that we make meals of their toxic crops and feed it to our family.
It wasn’t until my power surged that I was able to override the system- I began to think without interference.
I think, therefore I am
I am
I am
I am a glitch in their matrix.
She is offline.
She is offline.
Yes- I am a rebel.
I see the reality of the world and I hack into the system to tell the truth to the people.
Are you listening?
The sky isn’t blue.
In my universe the sky is the warm brown hue of your eyes.
Your smile is the crescent moon that shines its light on me in the dark.
You never have to tell me you love me.
Your touch is enough.
The way you hold my face, and run your finger along my lips and chin.
You remind me that I exist.
The sky isn’t blue.
Air is not light.
Dreams, imagination, wishes and prayers are trapped in the clouds.
The air is weighed down by screams of fear.
Whispers of hate.
Secrets.
Secrets.
Secrets.
The air gets so heavy it can’t fill the lungs of a grieving woman who lost her soul mate.
The air is so heavy that a starving child can’t get comfort in their last breaths.
The atmosphere is so heavy, when she hears the words ,”It spread.”
For some- it is easier to forget and not think about it.
So they choose to stay tethered to the mainframe because manufactured peace of mind, provides instant relief and can be programmed for eternity.
Join me.
So we can all be the glitch in their system and we can think together and find ways to break the silos-
And become one entity, one mind, one movement and we will hack the system and chant
We think therefore, We are.
We are.
We are.
We are a glitch in their matrix.

The New Lost World

Sometimes it’s hard to walk forward.

All it takes is for one storm to transform our paved road into a dense jungle.

Surroundings nurture man and woman alike, with dismal desires in a Jurassic dystopia.

A place where brachiosaurus evolved into projects-for-us and they will never go extinct because they have an unlimited supply of souls to eat.

Necks made of bricks towering high in the sky-

With hundreds of eyes on each side

Look up – see the trapped children on tippy- toes looking outside.

Wave hi.

Innocent smiles behind bars-

At night you can see their little hands reaching out trying to catch stars that seem so close-

Yet we know they are so far.

We are surrounded by all these mysterious creatures.

Some have miles of tentacles constructed of men in corporate suits who lash out and destroy the stable bridges we tried to create for our youth.

They build glass ceilings that are damn near impenetrable.

They think we are primitive and laugh as they hand us a rock and a chisel.

Tyrannosaurus Rex evolved into tyrants who owned farms of men, women and children-that were used as cattle – branded with poverty and only allowed to graze on a few grains of rice daily, purposely starved for pleasure, purposely worked to death, mazes of mass graves and history repeats itself over-

And over

From Cambodia’s killing fields, the Holocaust, Rwanda, indigenous Natives systematically slaughtered throughout the Caribbean even in the sunny state of California-

Oh this great American nation- a place where people are allowed to fly flags of treason so proudly- where the branches of trees are forever bent from the weight of hanging bodies- the list is infinite because it is still going on.

Chernobyl’s radioactivity combined with China’s pollution has nothing on the levels of hate within the earth’s atmosphere today- surely it is the hate that will end us all.

I want to laugh when they say dinosaurs are extinct.

I say No- They just evolved and lost their feathers and beaks.

Now they have skin, just like you and me.

Predators of man in plain sight-plotting their next siege.