tres pedazos de mi corazón
I. Primerx
Her mom died before she was done growing up
A child should never have to bury their parents they say
But she buried her heart with her mom that day
She stood alone with nothing to lose
(Except two little girls who will never call her mami)
She leaves her daughters
Like something of the future, she chooses herself in 1968
She explained that the walls of her home were stained with death and dripping ache
So she flies away
Across ocean, land, and border
In search of home without mother
II. Segundx
Its been 13 years since you smelled your mother’s lotion
Your father was myth and apparition
You were alone when you cut open your foot with glass
Skipping over rats and cracks
You bled rebellion and freedom
You did what you wanted. When you wanted.
But no one was there to bandage the wounds
No one was there to show you how to love yourself
Abandoned, you searched for home in the wrong places
You played with hurricanes in your hands
You loved the unholy and flirted with destruction
At 17 you had to learn the hard way
Your tongue turned purple and fell out your mouth
When you tasted gringo foods for the first time
And gringo language for the first time
Its been 35 years since you been back to Ecuador
Enough time has passed for your memories to trick you
You are Alien to this land and citizen of the other
Your existence lives in between worlds of nostalgia and nightmares.
Home was always a place you left, the permanency scares you
You didn’t know that your fear could be passed down
So now you can’t look your daughters in their eyes when they cry
Instead, you bury any emotions with productive lies.
III. Tercerx
Diasporic lost histories are left in your bloodline
Ancestors remain a mystery, migration a misery
Your Culture lost in translations of colonized languages
Conquest cloaks tradition, coopted for mass consumption
You try to face and look at yourself
but you don’t recognize yourself anymore, do you?
Like a snake shedding its skin, you created a rupture
To tear open the schism between who you want to be and who you are
the shadows of your former self have become comforting
You try to run and hide
Only to be startled by the carcass of your own soul
You walk the chalk outlines of your former pleasures
You have died many little deaths to get here
You are held captive by fears that have made homes in your heart
Your eyes glaze into a reflection no longer yours: an apparition in transition
You try to fit into your old skin but it tears at the seams,
You was never meant to survive
You try to walk like you used but your left ankle swells
Like a blister begging to burst
So you play hide and seek with your truth
Pain hurts so good and Its what you’re used to.
Ancestral trauma has a way of sneaking up on you
Forced migration, forced intimacy, lost language, bleeding tongue, feet calloused
Your mother didn’t have a dad
So you imagine what your grandfather’s voice sounded like
Your Abuelita warned you about being a romantic
She told you that that to be a romantic is to suffer
But your heart won’t let you…
You write poetry because you have always felt more deeply than others
You wanted to be born
You chose your parents, but didn’t expect to be collateral damage
Between your fathers fists and mothers cheek bones
No one ever taught you how to be safe or secure
Anxiety is second nature
You had to learn life the hard way
The ball in your throat
The soreness in the pit of your stomach
Came before your first period
Its what made you woman
You hide behind these walls made of flesh called home
You tell yourself that the sadness will never end
So you live in your head
Its become your home and prison
but the writings on the wall say that its time to go
Eviction notice
What happens when home no longer exists in the spot in your mind where you left it
So you wander trying to find it
But you end up going to the
most dark putrid place in your mind where anything goes
and your secrets stick to your ribs
Constricting you from breathing
You tried to camouflage reality until it caught up to you
You thought you could run away, didn’t you?
Maybe if you take more yoga, more meditation, more medication
Maybe then you can fall in love with yourself like you used to, once upon a time
but I heard that you can’t make homes out of human beings
so where does that leave mine?