I could have been your mother, aching with my belly immersed in the slime of my cells full of medicine and drugged up placenta. I could have been a druggie with a past with HIV and Herpes, and pushing through the night at the strip show with just underwear and topless. I could have been a woman without a cause driving along the highway with a bloody wrist and a heart broken spirit. I could have been a single mom, asking for dollars and asking for handouts from strangers for just Huggies for exchange of something you'd want in my closet. I could have been worse, but I am grateful. I know my life and I could have been a lot of things, with a lot of things, because of a lot of trauma.
But I am not....not ever and nor will I ever be. I am me, and as my Papi said.....I'm beautiful and kind.
I could have been a shadow in the ghostly house on Sherman Way in Reseda after taking my own life with 200 mg of Seroquel if my brother didn't slap my hands. I could have been a statistics if God didn't intervene and took my show and rode on with it. I could have been writing nonsense that no one cared about, instead my jibberish ain't so and it would be a tragic mistake not to read me because the lessons learned would be priceless and poignant.
I could have been a porn star after getting picked up in front of the bookstore to pose for Hustler and Playboy when the camera men wanted some quick buck, "And you don't have to do nothing, just look pretty and fuck," or so they said. They could have killed me with the shame. I could have been a wonder woman with a flying cape in my dreams from too much Valerian but it's non-addictive and it was fine, but I was a groggy froggy. I could have won an Oscar for being the most realistic rape victim, because I was one, but now I've survived it all, and I'm making ends meet and learning to write. Learning to be a better woman, learning to be a better human.
I could have been a magician, with disappearing tears. I could make them out of my eye sockets out of the tremors in my brain and they would all fall out magically, then I would wipe them and they would dry up. Voila! They're magic tears. They disappear with just a napkin and I could make more for free out of nothing. It would fall with the slightest jolt of trauma, so just shake up and shoot me and I'll die and no more tears. I would be the master magician, living and dead at the same time, exasperating oxygen till I am no more. I could have been so many things, and so many people, but I am not. I am grateful I am me. I was a lot of things and I was nonsense to a lot for a lot of people, but now I am not.
#My15 #JustWrite