after_monday

I have always been a dreadfully simple girl. Never wanting more the sake of my own sanity. Always afraid that spare change wouldn't be silenced in my pockets and that someone would find out my secrets. Keeping words spoken to me in the most awful tones locked up like a cloak of shame. It was just a burden to bare the name.

To come from nothing is an odd yet satisfactory thing. This is no attempt to write my life story and overwhelm you with aches and pains from years upon years ago. It is just simply a recollection of what makes me, me. For me. I have no brass tacks, I have no silver lining. Just these words. Just these words.

I wish I could recall a time when I was truly happy in my own skin. When I could wake up and be happy that it happened. To recall the scent in a room on a certain day in a september month that made me feel like everything was going to be okay. Truth be told, I never feel safe. I never feel completely sane. I never feel the splendor of the sun. I am much more of an overcast girl myself anyhow. The sun is just a show off, I am not down with that. Not one bit.

I throw on the same shoes every day, I follow the same routine. I occasionally smile at someone else's life. Hardly ever my own. I have been like this ever since I was around 9 and my mom left me for the 3rd time. I don't know why this time was any different. I don't know why this one was a dull knife to my adolescent back. I don't know why I can still feel the sting.

I remember her singing "sabor a mi" to me all the time as we would clean the shack of a house we called home. I remember washing dishes in a storage tub and her being happy. Her being selfish. Her falling for another man's tricks. It is what made her, her though. My mother. Her hair always smelled the same and her skin always had a faint cinnamon scent. Her smile never surfaced, her tears never fell, she was a stone. I remember just wanting her to love me for once. Love ME and not some man that came before me.

Wearing hand me downs of hand me downs. The bottom of the barrel scraps that my mom thought would suit me just fine because that is what I was. Bottom of the barrel, no outlook on life that aligned with hers. No mention of a man, no want for a family, no need to make my ends meet. I wasn't no daughter of hers. I was a daughter of my father. Simple and plain. That was alright with me.

I truly do believe my family are a big bunch of Anti-Heroes with a few real life american dreams staggered around in a sea of guilty swordsmen. My uncle, the Marine. He tells me all the time "you be proud of your country, be aware of your rights'. Where were my rights 11 years ago. When I was stripped and beaten and thrown to shame? Where was he? The savior? Where was God? Where was this man of holiness that I prayed to for relief from the strife that lived with me daily? Where was my white horse drawn carriage that would take me away from everything and make me feel like an actual person?

It never came. It never will. The bare bones of the story are brittle and weak and I don't even like thinking about them, but those are the structures to life I am building. I poured the concrete over my discrete scarring so no one would have to feel what I did. I laid my soul to rest when i was 14. When I was sure no one loved me. When I was sure that I would die alone because the world is a cold ass place.

No doctor, or nurse or bruja or holistic healer could make me feel like life was worth living. I was the daughter of my father and I was okay with that.

I wandered streets with sin painted on sidewalks. I lived off of other people's "I no longer want's". I dined off of scraps left for the dogs. I was me. I was making a life for myself down a road I would never want to walk down again. I remember street signs and frame of mind. I want to forget it all, but again, they are the brittle bones of my house. The skin is much prettier. The core, ugly as hell.

I raised myself after running away from everything I had ever known. My pride was too much to just sluff it off and renew myself every day. It wasn't happening anymore. The weight of my world was too much, the floor was not moving, I was stuck.

I want to be able to pinpoint my exact moment of clarity. My exact second of life when I realized that I COULD take care of myself and that I was LOVEABLE. I could care about people and have them feel the same way. I wish this, but in ending of that, I am sure it was a clusterfuck of things that led up to my clarity for the moment. I was able to move on.

I forgave ten fold all the things that ever happened to me. All the people that ever caused me harm or hurt. All the hangers and extension cords that grazed my skin. I forgave them all. I walked away victorious. Nothing was bringing me down anymore. I had to move on with my life and leave the bad memories scattered across the floor padding my feet that were running through to make way for my amazing life. My amazing life.

I had pitfalls. I had been downright shoved 10 feet into shit and got up, dusted off and did it all over again. I've died, I've cried, I have loved a man more than I ever thought I could. I have given when i had nothing to give and I have lived when I had nothing to live for.

This current point in my life, is an amazing one. I am surrounded by amazing people that I never thought could love me back as much as I love them. I have friends that will last a lifetime. I have love in my heart that will never ever die. Not like I did.

I battled cancer, my mother, bulemia, homelessness, harshness, reality, love and hate.
I am victorious in this life.
I am victorious in this life.