blackpoet – Diary of the Broken Ballerina

I AM STILL HERE

I just don't get it.
It -being defined as the objects of pandoras box.
It being defined as- 
the pain
the loss
the hurt 
The things that I should have gotten over-
but still hold me under. 
My soul 
feels like its drowning. 
I am trying to breaststroke in quicksand and
I don't know how to swim.
Ironically, 
I don't want to be saved. 
I want to survive using my own means. 
I need to learn how to trust my own capabilities. 
I need to learn how to believe in me. 
I am tired of looking into the mirror.
Who is she? 
Where is she?
No response. 
When my reflection smiles, 
she is mocking me. 
I am still not whole. 
I still have work to do.

Dearly Forgotten

I didn’t write this for the majority.

I didn’t write this for the generation of entitled personas mimicking the human form.

You know the ones that ridicule you for being different because what the majority says goes- and they created this dystopia where anything that is different is not welcome in this bar, store, school, park, bus, train, sidewalk, church, earth.

I wrote this for the vast generation of have nots.

Those who picked the shorter stick by proxy-

Via decisions that were not of their own-

Decisions chosen by those who chose not to try harder-

Decisions chosen by those who chose to not clear a safe path for us.

I say this with pride- We are the have nots.

We are the ones that were trained to endure walking barefoot- down roads littered with shards of fractured dreams – and promises-

With jagged edges that are inoculated with the past transgressions of others and we suffered from the subsequent wounds that festered deep into our soul-

We were eager to wash away our sins by running to get baptized in muddy water and drinking spoiled grape juice with stale crackers- because the silver lining is not always sparkling, fresh and new.

And we struggled to keep our mind free of gangrene, which is rampant because we have to trudge through the unsanitary conditioning strategies of society- you see-

Decay of the mind starts with the censorship of our thoughts, emotions and truths.

So I urge you to continue to make as much noise as you can-

Our voices in -unison can break many glass ceilings throughout eternity.

This is for the have nots-remember- Losing is never an option

Manifesto

I was birthed in an altered dimension constructed by the hands of deferred dreamers’- souls bludgeoned by burdens until they turned into concrete slabs and bricks, which were used to construct cities of catacombs with exits that only put you right back at the beginning of a path of footprints that lead to self destruction.

Can you imagine being buried alive for over 30 years?

I was forced to draw the frames of a million windows on miles of stone walls using blood from the wounds of my wounds that had been standing one on top of another fighting to get some fresh air.

The toxic environment caused parts of my soul to slough off and evaporate into the stale atmosphere , which mocked me with precipitation that consisted of my innocence dispersed into rain drops which would form twelve feet deep lakes that would taunt me with the reflections of what was lost, taken by force, and I had no choice but to swim across and continue on my path to the surface.

It took me years to slither above the layer of sediment made from decaying past forms of me that I shed in order to lighten the load-

while I struggled to ascend mountains of spines, the remnants of skeletons in the closet, navigating across fractures caused by the weight of the world on weak shoulders demineralized by societies leaching tendencies which erode souls and strip the nutrients needed to produce creativity which in turn depletes the energy necessary for survival.

Now I sit here free.

Dictating this manifesto, unafraid to call out the wolves in human skin.

The life force behind the revolution is us!

We emerge from the swaps, we emerge from the sewers, we emerge from the slums of nightmares holding hands-tattooing your mind with diamonds from the abyss every chance we can get because this is the movement of the rebels.

This is the movement of the rebels.

This is the poet’s manifesto.

Sangre

Yesterday I drove through a thick, blinding fog.
I hoped it would lead me into a portal that would take me to the places that I visit in my dreams.
The places where unfamiliar faces greet me with familiar smiles and hugs.
Here they remind me that eternity is a real place.
This fog caused me to levitate in memories, and before I knew it –
There I stood.
Lost in my mental Labyrinth, which shape shifts with my emotions-
filled with dark alleyways lined with street lamps with flickering bulbs that hold the pieces of the souls that still continue to guide me with the light of their memory and love.
I soon found myself in a house of mirrors.
As I walked down the forgotten corridors- I started to break every mirror because I didn’t want to see the reflections of me-
Images of my past – the puppet that I used to be.
The wooden girl without a cricket for a conscious- who just wanted to be free.
I painfully stepped on every fractured piece of me – as I remembered that I was
a shattered girl living in a shadow world, trying to hunt for the sun- barefoot on hot city concrete, standing in line waiting to get baptized in the river of illegally open fire hydrants- which was the only time I felt relief.
I always watched where the water went as it trickled down the grates into the belly of the beast.
Wondering if it all ends up in the same place that the blood went when it spilled onto the city streets?
I was the forgotten Tarzan, a child raised by sewer rats, swinging through life’s jungle holding on for dear life to the lines from discarded children’s bibles and National Geographic magazines that I saved from trash piles and used them to build paper houses for me to hide in, while I treated my wounds alone.
Lifes lessons built a warrior like no other.
I am a walking, talking enigma.
My soul is grotesquely disfigured with scars and missing parts, but the one thing that was never touched was my heart.
My blood type is the rarest of them all, not A , not B, Not AB, not O-
It is light, it is heat, it is energy, it is unapologetically me.
When I get hit by the fists of life, this rare emulsion flows freely from my busted lip and bleeding nose onto paper – and dries into fragments that form love notes from my soul reminding you and I that anything can be conquered with love.

First I Tried to Walk in the Footsteps of My Father (Part One)

I had to ingest a few extra ibuprofen, with hopes that my words would be less inflammatory-

then my spirit whispered go ahead and chase them down with that leftover coquito mixed with your cup of coffee.

My tortured soul knew that when the liquid truth is caffeinated- it would help me feel warmer in this cold realm, speak clearer and see better –

because this journey is perilous but necessary to help me find myself and for me to understand you and for you to understand others.

So, I walked and walked – backwards down my timeline until I started to smell smoke, and my instinct told me that I would soon find the path of my parents.

I had to stop when I saw the five-year-old version of me screaming at the side of the road.

The forest is on fire!

The forest is on fire and it’s destroying all of our family trees!

These strange flames burn from the roots up.

Some of our culture was born from slash and burn agriculture, which is supposed to cultivate the land for planting trees with strong roots instead it proliferated fields and fields of deferred dreams which sprouted an invasive species of long-double stemmed plants.

I am the direct descendent of weeds that flowered like dandelions, and when the winds of fate pursed her lips together and blew –

their cotton ball seeds became windborne and settled between concrete slabs and eventually they germinated me.

I continued on until I came upon a forked path.

On the left, I saw a younger version of my father opening up a pack of Marlboros and he didn’t recognize me as his daughter.

He said, “Hey you look like someone I should know.” and he asked me for a light.

We both laughed at his joke, as we were surrounded by fire, and he lit the cigarette from glowing embers in the atmosphere.

I could tell that’s where my humor and sarcasm came from.

I asked, “Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and accompany me on this walk?”

He walked to the rhythm of salsa music and I loved hearing him talk.

My father’s family migrated to New York from Puerto Rico.

My father never knew his father and my father’s mother was his grandmother because his mother was a young woman who was still trying to figure out life with 5 kids and counting before the age of 29.

And when his grandmother passed, my father said life became a blur of different city skylines visualized from the seat of L train rides as he traveled from a Brooklyn sofa to Brooklyn couch using a plastic bag from the bodega as his luggage carrier on a week-to-week basis- never knowing what to expect next.

I saw him beginning to fade and I grabbed his arm and I asked him, “If you had a daughter what would you name her?”

He took one last, long drag from his cigarette and flicked the butt to the ground-

and the smile that spread across his face infiltrated my heart and the parts that were stone started to soften-

He said,” I will name her Mariana. Mariana Soto- Mari for Mother Mary-Mother of Souls and Ana for the name of the women that I loved and whose heart I broke.”

And he faded away, lost in the burning forest of addiction for 20 years.

“Ana” is not the name of my mother and I am okay with that.

He named me after the true desire in his heart and when he looked at me, he saw the purity that he lost.

In the quest to understand me, I had to understand where I came from.

So, first I tried to walk in the footsteps of my father.

The New Lost World

Sometimes it’s hard to walk forward.

All it takes is for one storm to transform our paved road into a dense jungle.

Surroundings nurture man and woman alike, with dismal desires in a Jurassic dystopia.

A place where brachiosaurus evolved into projects-for-us and they will never go extinct because they have an unlimited supply of souls to eat.

Necks made of bricks towering high in the sky-

With hundreds of eyes on each side

Look up – see the trapped children on tippy- toes looking outside.

Wave hi.

Innocent smiles behind bars-

At night you can see their little hands reaching out trying to catch stars that seem so close-

Yet we know they are so far.

We are surrounded by all these mysterious creatures.

Some have miles of tentacles constructed of men in corporate suits who lash out and destroy the stable bridges we tried to create for our youth.

They build glass ceilings that are damn near impenetrable.

They think we are primitive and laugh as they hand us a rock and a chisel.

Tyrannosaurus Rex evolved into tyrants who owned farms of men, women and children-that were used as cattle – branded with poverty and only allowed to graze on a few grains of rice daily, purposely starved for pleasure, purposely worked to death, mazes of mass graves and history repeats itself over-

And over

From Cambodia’s killing fields, the Holocaust, Rwanda, indigenous Natives systematically slaughtered throughout the Caribbean even in the sunny state of California-

Oh this great American nation- a place where people are allowed to fly flags of treason so proudly- where the branches of trees are forever bent from the weight of hanging bodies- the list is infinite because it is still going on.

Chernobyl’s radioactivity combined with China’s pollution has nothing on the levels of hate within the earth’s atmosphere today- surely it is the hate that will end us all.

I want to laugh when they say dinosaurs are extinct.

I say No- They just evolved and lost their feathers and beaks.

Now they have skin, just like you and me.

Predators of man in plain sight-plotting their next siege.

Black and White

Beauty is black and white.
Simple.
Soft.
Highlights of delicate shades of gray as she ages with grace.
Poised in elegance.
Wrinkles in silk that are still soft to the touch.
I dare you to touch.
Captivating, sinisterly seductive innocence.
Rare treasure hiding in plain sight.
A magnet for a smile that draws you in.
If only you knew the depth of her mind.
The fantasies and magic realms she dreams of.
The warmth of her unconditional love for life and the purity of her heart.
She is a light within a light.
Beauty is black and white.

Daydreaming

Sometimes I drift off into outer space.
I float slowly with my eyes closed, my arms and hands spread out at my sides.
I feel the changes of the earth’s atmosphere as it bathes my exposed skin.
I ascend.
I ascend.
I ascend.
Suspended in magic.
Weightless.
I only open my eyes when I no longer feel the wind.
I open my eyes and I look forward to seeing you at my side.
These travels are for us.
The world stands still, but our universe is infinite.
The most beautiful chaos.
Constant collisions of emotions, love, fears, truth.
They explode and generate endless stars and galaxies for us to explore.
Five words I whisper to you.
One day at a time.

Give it Back

I’ve been yelling at the clock all day.
Yelling at the top of my lungs.
Stop!
Stop!
Your evil hands dictating our lives as they pass.
You point out – down to the very second- that our youth slips away from us.
You remind me that I grow old.
You remind me that time is of essence.
You give me anxiety.
Time.
No time.
Wasted time.
Lost time.
Forgotten time.
Beautiful time.
You just continue through war, famine, feast.
You just march on through celebrations, birth and death.
You remind the seasons to come and go.
Tell me, why do you torture us so?
I am begging you to slow down.
I just want to sleep in his arms for two eternities.
I just want to hear his heart beating for three eternities.
I want to hear my kids footsteps, laughter and feel their hugs for four eternities.
Time, do you hear me?
You just look me in my face and ignore me.
You just keep moving ahead without any regard.
We are powerless.
Time, you are cruel.

Jungle of Man

Processing.
Processing.
The wait can be so painful.
Uncomfortable silence consumes the moment.
It’s too late to recant your words or undo your actions.
You put them in the universe and now they hang like vines in a jungle.
Easy, accessible reminders of things never to be forgotten.
Vines that block the path to forgiveness.
Vines so thick they can’t be cut down.
So we wait and hope the treacherous jungle that was made burns down and spawns an oasis of understanding, love and commitment.
Processing.
Processing.
Processing.