Dormire

Mi vida es un fracaso. Si, un fracaso que no puedo arreglar. No lo puedo borrar. No lo puedo ignorar. Si no fuera por mis bebes, esta pelicula hubiera terminado hace muchos anos. Mi unico triunfo es ellos. Tan bellos, ellos. Tan inocentes, ellos. Me aman con todos mis fracasos y todos mis erores. Hoy siento el mundo encima. Hoy siento que todo mundo puede ver, el desastre que es mi vida. El desmadre que es mi vida!! Cerrare mis ojos por un momento, una eternidad. Cuando despierte espero haber olvidado todo el dolor, la desillusion, y la amargura. Crei en el amor una vez mas, en el amor de un hombre. Termine con un corazon ecajado de cuchillos, sangrando perpetuamente. Me queda poca vida. Cerrare mis ojos por un momento. Cerrare mis ojos por una eternidad. Sera suficiente tiempo para remendar mis heridas? No, creo que esta vez no despertare. Emillia, hija mia, cuida a tus hermanos y ensenales cuanto los ame. Hoy me muero de tristeza, de traiccion, de dolor. Cerrare mis ojos, y dormire.

Shattered once too many times

You are not pummeling my outsides,
for the whole world to see.
Your words are destroying my insides,
the parts that are me.

My soul, my heart, my self-esteem
gone because of the way you treat me.
You are not a huge man beating a
poor victim. But your tongue is twice as strong and it is shattering my heart.

I turn left, I turn right but no matter
what I do, you are there to prove me wrong.
I am in your prison, don't you see?
I am but a caged bird, don't  you agree?

I have been in this cage before, whether by force or by choice. I have been in this cage in which you hold me today. Let me free, let me free, for I am meant to fly. You fear that I can fly. You fear that I can fly.


Enough of the rants, enough of the raves. Don't you see it doesn't stop there. Pretty soon, my face it will be. One human controlling another, that's  called slavery. You may have a comeback saying you are stuck with me, but I have shown you the door where you can leave.

Stop! Stop now before it's too late. Don't you see that you are hurting me. I had managed to trust you with my frail heart. Now, I have to pick up that heart, just one more time. Shattered on the floor like broken glass, it will not be so easy to piece it back. Each time it breaks, it's that much harder. I just sit here thinking, this puzzle is much too hard to piece together. It would not break because I had it protected. I let my guard down and you broke my wings, my life, my soul, my heart.

You said there was no need to protect myself, because you were a gentle man. You said there was no need to give a half-hearted try, because you would love me until the end. Now you compare me to what I am not, and ask me why I think I'm special. Fool! You told me I was special to you.  Now, I see how special I am.

I blend into all the women that you knew. I blend into all the women that hurt you. Eventhough I care for you, love you, hold you and want you, I will never be but a blending of all the women you went through. I understand this now. Is it fair? No, because my merits are different.

I don't think you ever had the grace of a lady's presence. Whether that lady be sweet as wine, fine as silk, beatiful as porcelain, or ugly and trodden by life's battles, she is still a lady.  A lady deserves respect, gentle care, and kind words. I know, to you I am no lady. I am nothing but a blended whore.

The shattered pieces! The shattered pieces are back! This time I will be at work long and hard, trying to put this shattered heart back into one. I have lost so many pieces. I fear it will not look like a heart at all when I am done. Do you care? I don't think you care. I give up, traitor. I give up. I will not piece my heart together again. I am busy licking my wounds away. I know,
I will spend my time building back my stone wall.

I will take all the time I need. I do not owe you a deadline. I do not owe you a time frame. You are an adult. I am an adult. You tend to your wounds and I will tend to mine. No sorries necessary. 

The Stolen Memory

It was summer of 2009. I was living between Mexico and Somerton, Arizona because my husband had been deported. My three children and I traveled across the border on weekends to keep their father in our lives. It was a very difficult and stressful time for my children and I. We lived by the seat of our pants.

My husband called me and exclaimed, "I found your father's car. I needed a shovel so I went to my friend's house. The guy I was working with all last week. Do you remember? Anyway, he didn't open the door, so I went to the back. There was a makeshift car port and I looked inside. There was your father's car! I found your father's car, but I can't go with you because they'll know I told." my husband's voice quivered with fear. "What? Who? You found my father's car?" I held the phone crying, because I thought my dad's car was gone for good. I felt moronic because I had the car in my care when it was stolen.

I walked out the door one morning to take my father's car to the shop and it was gone. I had parked it right in front of our door. Holy shit! My father's car was gone. I was in Mexico. What would I tell him? My husband had gone out to work and had seen a couple of men knocking next door, so he said. I was sure his brother was somehow involved in the theft, because he lived right next door. I named my husband's brother as the main suspect in my police report.

As soon as I got off the phone with my husband, I rushed to Mexico, only 10 or so miles from my home in the U.S.  I went to pick up my husband so he could go to the police department and give them the location of the car. He was adamant he was not going. I swore to him if he didn't go with me, he would never see me again.  I had balls of steel all of a sudden. I was going to recover my father's car. My father was seventy-five-years-old and getting his car stolen was the greatest injustice. I was personally going to see to it that I took his car back in one piece. I called dispatch and noone answered. I was growing anxious, so I drove around the streets of San Luis R. C. Sonora until I ran into a unit. He quickly dispatched the car theft unit and we met at the end of the culprit's street. I drove through the back road escorted by a unit, and several units approached through the front. I heard the radio transmits saying there was no car on the premises. My heart sank. Then I heard them say the owner was waiting at the front of the property. I jumped in my car and met the officers. I urged my husband to get off the car but he refused. I went over and asked the officers if they had found my car. "You should know!" said one officer. "The owner of the house is claiming your husband brought the car to her home, placed it in the back and had been dismantling it. She states you were in on the plan and you would be reporting it stolen in the United States." The officer looked sternly at me while I reacted. I must have turned white as a ghost and I felt my muscles disappear from my legs. I was needing to barf. All I could think was I needed to barf. I grabbed on to a tree next to me and out came everything I had in my stomache. I asked fervently if they had found my father's car. Their answer was affirmative. They brought over some lights as it was pitch dark and the detective walked me to the back of the house. As soon as they opened the make-shift car port, I about fell to my knees. My father's car, the only memory he had left that reminded him of my mother, was in pieces staring me in the face. I approached the car, held on to something and started crying. I was crying because I would not be returning my father's car to him, and I was crying because I knew my husband had plotted this from the start.

The detective pulled me aside and all of a sudden started talking to me like a social worker or a counselor.  He spoke about my forgiving him before, my covering his mistakes, my taking financial responsibility for his wrongdoings. It was all true. I looked at this man wondering if he could read my mind. I was in so much pain, but his words were so clear. "We have arrested your husband. My officers just placed him in the patrol car. You can either follow us to the station and pay to let him out or you can walk straight to your car, not turning to look at him, and be free from him for good. Let go now maam before he destroys you."
I thanked the detective for his time, walked to the front without turning to look at my husband, got in my car and left. That was the last time I was with him. I picked up the broken pieces of my heart from the floor, placed them in my hand and walked away.

Placing the pieces back together is cumbersome. It's 2014, one month away from 2015. Darn crazy glue does not stick like it used to in the 90's. My heart glues together for a few days and then I have to pick up some pieces off the floor. However, that's a story for another time. For another day. As for now, I bid you good night.

My Daughter Emillia

When I was pregnant with my first child in 1994, I so wanted a little girl. My thoughts were always of a little girl. At about 6 months pregnant,  I was told that I was having a boy. Nineteen years later, I go into my first-born transgender daughter Emilia's first surgery. God has spared me the nerves and the worry until now. She will be going in to have her tonsils (a painful and grueling recovery) plus her uvula removed. I know God will bring her through the surgery. However, I know the pain of recovery that lies ahead for my dear daughter. Emilia wants them out because they have been obstructing her breathing for much too long. They are so swollen, she stops breathing over 500 times a night and kicks and wails like a dying fish when she's asleep.

At 9:30 a.m. she goes into surgery. Everybody on the outside sees her as my brave oldest son. I, on the other hand, see her as my strong but fragile oldest child. The doctors will be there to fix Jose, while I will be there to nurture Emillia. She so wishes she could be on the outside what she is on the inside. Does anyone understand? Honestly, I don't think even she understands. She doesn't understand why she was born a boy.  "Mom, I want to change my name to Emilia and change my birth certificate to show I am a girl." Let's find out how.

Emilia was about 3-years-old when I knew she was a girl trapped in the body of a boy. She ran to the girls section at the stores, she loved carrying purses, and she fought her younger sister for Barbie everything. Now, I am heterosexual and I love tools and mechanics. So, I'm not categorizing her based on likes. I can't quite put it into words. I just knew Jose would grow up to be Emillia. I let him grow up to be who he wanted to be. Emillia is Emillia, boy or girl. I love her either way. She is my oldest, my first and none of them came with an instruction manual.

My daughter has suffered through the growing pains of knowing who she is and wants to be. Emillia started by thinking she was gay. However, she wanted to wear dresses, make-up, long hair. Through self-discovery she identified herself as a girl. She has spent nineteen years finding herself. Emillia still has a long way to go. The journey has just begun. For most of us, though, self-acceptance is a life-long process. I just try to remind her that we are family and we love and accept her decisions. Out there she may have to fight to be accepted. Here, in the comfort of her mother's arms, she is my beautiful daughter no matter what is on the surface.

While Sleeping...

There are two things that are guaranteed to us in this world. Those two things are set on total opposites of the spectrum. What are they, you might ask? Can you guess? Let me spare you the agony of having to figure it out. We as human beings come into this world through birth and leave this world through death. Yes, indeed,  I can guarantee that all of us share these two experiences.
What one does with the time in between, does not come with an instruction manual.

In God's word it is said that all our lives are written even before we are born. Yet, the Holy Bible also explains that God gave us free will. So, which is it? Do we have free will or are we pre-destined to make every choice, every decision, as it was written? Can we assume that we are just following some scripted lines, and we stay on this Earth until our last scene. Those are quite interesting questions to ponder. I am owner of my own opinion, but I cannot, will not, say for definite what is true. I am human. I am on this Earth. I have completed my first task, birth. I so would love to remember the experience, but I do not. Not one second of my adventurous birth can I recollect.

It was an event to remember,  from what I hear. My siblings explained how my mother was dying giving birth to me. She had what now sounds like pre-eclampsia. In 1973 there was probably no such term to explain my mother's agony. The doctors also lost my heart beat. They took my mother into surgery to extract a still-born baby. Instead, here I am today with three children of my own. Was I dead? Inside my mother's protective womb, had my heart stopped beating? Did I live and die before I was born?

Whatever may have happened,  I ended up being the last of eight children. However, as I lay here writing, it seems I was born an only child. None of my brothers and sisters are in my life. They all have families to tend. Of course, so do I.  Is it my fault that I am so distant from my family? If I knew the answer to that question, it would make things so much easier. I finally accepted that I am the runt. I am the plus 1. Nine years span between myself and my older sister. I lived like an only child with my mother and father. Well, enough of that.

I started writing sometime in the wee hours of the night. I woke up, picked up my phone, and I had written part of a new post. I went to sleep angry so I must of had things to say. So, my thoughts were turned into a post. Funny, I actually make sense writing while I sleep. I just don't remember the point of my writing. Nonetheless less, I'm  posting.

My Reader, thank you

I am ever so sorry that I haven't come to visit much. I have been thinking about you every day. I read what you send me. I just can't seem to have the time or the energy to write. Usually, writing consumes me. Lately, however, I sense or fear that nobody really cares what I say. Do I make sense? Do I bore you? I take all the clutter that gets cramped in my mind and attempt to make sense of it to try and get my point across. I understand that if it wasn't for you, I would not exist. The words would just fade away into nothingness. It is because of you that I am somebody. You see, when there is no one, I sit and I share my deepest thoughts one word at a time. I scribble away into the morning sunset. Then, there you are. You listen, observe, bring my words to fruition. So you see, I have not forgotten you. You are so very important in my life. I have so much to catch up on in my little books of secrets. Yes, the words will come. They will fill the pages and you will be there to share in my insanity. Thank you for being patient and for hearing my voice, though it may be as quiet as a word on a paper.