I am brave.
I am a risk taker and have risked it all.
I am a thriver.
I am a genius.
I am generous
I am a power player.
I am a winner.
I am a creative thinker.
I am stronger than I feel.
I am more beautiful than I believe.
I am living.
I am breathing.
I am working.
I am smarter than I feel.
I am selfless.
I am a writer, and I will...keep writing
#JustWrite
Thank you to the man in the ambulance who squeezed my hand when I was covered with blankets to be transported to the asylum. I didn't know anyone who would help me, and my family had given up. The trauma was so damaging and it hurt me that I couldn't function. There were suspects inside my mind and the report was ignored and they were free to roam and hurt other woman, and all I wanted was to end my life.
Thank you to my Paris Compadre, who told me that I risked it all when I asked dream man to elope with me. I won't forget his blue eyes and strong jaw, and how much I loved him but he was only okay with me. You told me I was brave although I was so hurt, because I was a survivor. I wished I was never hurt by it, and everything had worked out, but all was harmed and I was too dysfunctional to realize my own doing. All I heard was laughter from the pretty guys and girls and married women, and even his supporters. I would never be loved by his community. I wished it was easy to get over but the loss was so great I could hardly bear it, but our talks helped me.
Thank you to the woman who hugged me at Santa Monica Third Street Promenade when I was working retail, selling Middle Eastern Bags, sobbing and falling apart from the assaults. Your Native American spirit soaked my tears and I was covered by your embrace.
Thank you to the nameless man who drove me in mid-July to my rental apartment before my move to Colorado, after my titanic mistake. You took $5, but gave me a kind blessing, forever.
Thank you to the Domestic Violence advocates who helped me. I would not have made graduation for my Master Degree without you. You deserved a lot more things in life than just this work, because your heart helped so many people.
Thank you to those whose hearts lean to help survivors. We are invisible sometimes, and only recognizable by symptoms, but our hearts are pumping love just the same.
Thank you.
#JustWrite
~Inspired by Gloria Hemingway from the family memoir Strange Tribe by John Hemingway~
No matter what the world labels me,
I will prevail.
However much people hate me,
I will prevail.
You see, I have a gift.
I can turn sorrows into similes,
I can transform madness into metaphors.
If she is a wench, I turn her into a warrior.
No matter how much I cry,
I will keep going.
However much I want to die,
I will keep going.
To keep living, bears my womb with joy.
I find small moments of love,
In the inconspicuous places.
If triggers of trauma comes, I smile and wave them goodbye.
I have this gift to change the sadness inside of me,
into sweet revelry.
The once chaotic turmoil full of black tar,
into a peaceful moment of mercy.
I have this gift inside of me,
To turn the midnight oil of terrors and anxiety,
into a masterpiece.
I have this gift to change the bad into whole.
Perhaps it is an easy task for some people,
but people I know find it hard to believe,
how a small moment of hope
can be found in the midst of darkness.
How life can be hopeful in faith,
despite the mourning and injustice.
I have this gift you see, and I know I'm not alone.
I am gifted in the many ways the world cannot see.
I am the gift.
and the gift is in me.
If I was a divine celestial angel, would I have met my true companion? It was told that angels were neither capable to marry nor given in marriage by God, but what was to be of me? Was I an angel or was I born human? My heart told of how mercy wanted me to work for him, with a pen, writing life of unfinished and unrequited love, but what was to be of me, the writer with such a predicament? Was I mercy's story or the author? Should I write stories of star-crossed lovers or was I one myself? Should I write what I knew?
But what was to be of him? He was not star crossed, he found his true love and won't be another. He was and always will be with her, and won't ever value me. I knew I was nowhere to be in this destiny with a companion. I won't give up on my own life, there might be one for me, another soul whose wings were bent hell on loving, but broken from heart wrenching life. I wish I was not damaged from the struggles in life as an angel in disguise, but I was and the process of which I wanted to savor with the man I wanted to marry became destroyed and damaged, just like my soul was.
I promised myself that I won't die and won't live to die for another woman who hurt me, but there were trying times and I wished I was not too weakened by trauma. I wished my mind was a black stallion pacing with me in steady state and running and working and writing, but I found myself instead, ruminating. I often ruminate, dissecting, analyzing, and wishing, while he was living and his life was the epitome of happy. I was not his dream, and until I meet another of my heart's dream, should I waste my life on these ruminations? Should I give up on marriage? Should I give up on love? I hope and pray for myself to live another day.
No! I shall keep on going, and keep on with my mercy's pen upon forgiving myself and my undoing and doing, and my post-traumatic-mistakes. I wished I was not, but I was and will be, a woman who has to live with these conditions, but was it my fault that demons pursued my life, the angel with broken wings? This was why I made myself a writer, to propose to the world, to have me, and to love me, and to hell with the rest.
I pray, as I write with Mercy's pen, that God will write with divination, hope, faith and unconditional love, as was in Psalms 139, and won't give up on me. That God, himself, will finish my story with truth and such a brilliant love that no one will compare, not even my own thoughts could imagine. That I will be...His Mercy Testimony.
#JustWrite
O how I wish you could hear me, Dear Gloria. Thy search for wholeness were through dungeons that you travailed much and was tired until vice came to devour. Vanity, extravaganza of sex and lust came to lure you away from your truth. Your heart searched for wholeness that was simply inside the womb of your Mother and Father, who were both dumbfounded by your beauty and need for grace and affection. I wish you could hear me, Dear, and knew how much we all loved you.
O how I wish you could hear me, Dear Gloria. You were the world to this universe and your heart was worthy and enough. You needed not search nowhere, anywhere, always, for the worth and wholesome soul you searched for. Perhaps money was the answer, but we all knew it fleeted you like a bastard without a cause. If you were here, you would have brought dead souls to life. You were a legend and your death on the floor in Miami brought no justice to us, the fans. We wanted more of you.
O how I wish you could hear me, Dear Gloria. Your sense of wonder was so vast that the galaxy bursts within you. In explosion, you were the andromeda and the supernova. You were you, and no one else could be. You, Gloria or Gregory, were excelsis searching for deo, and you were in the game before you ended in paralysis from awe of your magnanimous thirst for adventure. You, were you, and no one else could be.
O how I wish you could hear me, Dear Gloria. It was okay. You will be found. You were true to yourself and we needed to hear you, but your shouts were uncontained that we heard rumbling of the mountains of your desires, not the grounded sanity you truly should sought for. I wish you could hear me, Dear Gloria, I wish you could hear how I loved you, Greg or Gloria or Magnificent Creature. You were the unicorn of your dreams, and you wanted so much that all couldn't have been at one place at one time.
O how I wish you could hear me, Dear Gloria. I loved you. Never would die. You were and will still be valued, and you will be remembered.
#JustWrite
The scent of cut Cara-cara Orange brushed my nose with citrus healing as I held steady the knife to cut it into eight pieces. A few minutes after I came home, my headache overwhelmed me and the orange was my first stretch to peace and calm as I tore the oranges and suckled them inside my mouth. I didn't mean for my headache to cause me to text my Mami with nonsensical subjects but past memories brought it up and I made her cry now.
It hurts me to make my Mami cry, but I have been doing so each time I texted nonsense to her about past memories and my fears or bad thoughts. She's grown so sensitive and she's especially empathic about my past trauma that her tears flowed out with each syllable she reads on her cell phone out of the texts from me. I didn't know what to do, as I asked her, "Mami, eat some with me, please," as I offered the Cara-cara oranges we bought together from Costco three days ago. Her tears flowed again on her cheek as I held her close. "When are you going to be healthy?" she asked me. I kept her close inside my hug and I kissed her forehead.
She walked towards the chair in the dining room, and sat as I ate the oranges that I placed inside a ceramic bowl. "We should have bought a mobile home so we could have bought a place to live without a mortgage, and you will have something for yourself when I die," she said.
I almost cried, but I changed the subject and said, "I think you need to crack your back and I can give you a foot massage, Mami. Why a mobile home?"
I gave her another orange and she stopped crying, "We can both live there," she said. "We can't afford a rental home. Listen to me, Diana, bikin naik darah (you make my blood pressure rise)."
"Mami, janggan pikiran tentang Diana. Diana cuma ngoceh aja," I said. (Don't think too much about me, I"m just talking).
She looked to me and agreed on me cracking her back with accupressure and with the foot massage. I breathed and suckled on another orange.
"You will live forever, Mami," I said. "I pray, forever. I can work at Target and we will be okay. I love you. Don't worry." Yet, I felt her worry through her palms as I held her hand to walk to the bedroom for the massages.
Mami has been and will always be my petite Bear Hug. I told her everything and everything she knew about me. I will try to not tell her anything, but everything comes out and she has been my confidant. I wish I wasn't so transparent with her. I wished we had barriers about words, but we didn't and never did. I could talk for hours with her, and even in silence, I could spend eternity with her. I supposed this was why my Papi loved her so deeply and before he returned to Heaven, he told her, "I love you, my first and only love."
#JustWrite