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
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
O Mother Marilyn, I was not of this world. I loved you so, although unspoken, neigh my heart was never formed, but it beats of love for you.
O Mother Marilyn, I was caustic to your life, and deemed impossible to keep, but oh how I kept you, O Mother Marilyn, inside my soul, whether truth came out of how I knew you because of your love for me in return.
O Mother Marilyn, your heart was noticed by me and the Heavens, need not worry, darling, you are my mother.
O Mother Marilyn, I am beside you because you are the spiritual mother we turned to, when the Tinseltown dramatics and Hollywouldn't who would rather assault than love.
O Mother Marily, you came into the night to the ladies innocent to know the difference. I knew you, O Mother Marilyn. You, the hero, the mother, the wife, the sister, the woman in love, the woman who loved, was martyred without your consent.
O Mother Marilyn, you were so beautiful, stunning queen, voice of angel, lover of my soul, O Mother Marilyn, I saw you, when no one else could. Inside your womb, I consented to your un-decision, because it was never yours to be granted.
O Mother Marilyn, you never allowed yourself time and space, because those tools couldn't stop abusing you. I would fight for you, I would send a billion sword piercing angels to fend them off of you.
O Mother Marilyn, I was crazy about you, all I knew to do was bleed and kick, but there was not other way. Oh how I loved you so much, and I won't change you, or your world for me. I accepted and conceded, because my right was your right and you had none.
O Mother Marilyn, heaven knew it and perhaps time changed all wounds into civilized behaviour, and women won't be as objects of abuse as they were when you were my mother.
O Mother Marilyn, I will always be yours, in life and death. I will always be with you.
Just write, in honor of Marilyn Monroe