The Deconstruction of Self / The Transformative Powers of Writing.

As soon as I became conscious of writing I realized the power that existed within it, the absolute freedom to express what, at the young age of twelve, seemed so inexpressible. It wasn't until a lot later that I became conscious of the healing powers of writing, and I mean writing when used as a tool of self reflection. When we write in a way that's completely honest to ourselves, when we remove (or merely identify) whatever fears we have and really look and deconstruct who we are, why we are who we are, how we feel, why we feel how we feel, what we've done to contribute to those feelings and whether those actions have been positive or harmful then transformation begins.

Let me side track for a moment. I started writing because of Harry Potter (bless your heart J. K. Rowling!) That's right, H.P. fan fiction which to most doesn't sound like it'd amount to much. In my experience fiction is viewed as the lesser of the many writing categories. I mean it's not like it's based on anything valuable, it's all pretend right? *insert twitching eye and throbbing vein on forehead* As soon as I started writing I learned that for as imaginative and wild as things get they're always deeply rooted in very real and personal aspects of my life. Passing Strange puts it best, "I illuminate with fiction the darkness truth cannot explain."

Getting BACK on track. The point is writing, in particular fiction, allowed me to process all the things I was going through and learning (Buddhism) at the time. And then my writing became thoughts & stories which then turned into letters to friends. Why letters? Well I've said it before; writing can be extremely lonely when there's no one to read what you've written, especially when it's your only means of coherently expressing yourself. Is writing absolutely essential to my mental and spiritual survival? Hell Yes. What's the point of this rant? Get a journal, start writing, get used to talking to yourself on paper. There's something undeniably powerful in being able to read through old notebooks and journals and through that being able to see how far you've come and how you've grown since then.

As someone who's recently graduated with a BA in Writing, I guess I'm just contemplating what writing really means to me and how I can use that in the work I'm doing now. Writing is amazingly therapeutic and it's about time we introduced it to kids in the school system in a way that isn't restricted by grammar and rigid formats. In the last couple of months I've worked with kids and it's really kinda sad to see they're so challenged by the concept that writing can be as creative and as imaginative as they want. They're so traumatized by grammar and spelling that most of them never even try to get to the page in the first place.

If you're a teacher or someone who works with kids, (or someone who's just terrified of writing) get them to be creative with their writing. Throw away the grammar and spelling, those are things that can be corrected later, get them comfortable and feeling safe with this new form of expression. Ease into it with stories, then letters to someone they know and before you know it they'll be ready for introspection.

But I guess my opinion of writing in the school system is a rambling post for another day.

Until then...

Mucho amor Y paz,

Yo.

Open Mic Time.

The Mantra of Humility not Recognizing its own Beauty.

The Mantra of Humility not Recognizing its own Beauty:
Or the story of a girl who learned to love herself.

I am not beautiful. I'm ugly. No one will ever love me.
I am not beautiful. I'm ugly. No one will ever love me.
I am NOT beautiful. I am ugly. No one. will ever. love me.

My nose is too big and crooked. it points down as if it's frowning.
My mouth is too small. it is never smiling.
My hair is too long and frizzy. I'll use it to cover my face so that no one will ever see me.
My stomach is too big. I'm fat. I'll hide it behind my hands.
My head is too square. It's shaped like a box. A hollow box where knowledge slips out of my eardrums.
I am stupid. dumb. inconsequential.

No one will ever love me.
No one will ever love me because I don't wear make up.
"Go put on lipstick." she tells me, "Add some blush." "Why don't you ever wear dresses?"
"If you ever get married he'll leave you," she says, "No man wants to marry a woman who doesn't cook or stay home."
No one will ever love me.

I'm ugly.
My skin is a sickly pale. There is no flush. The visible blue-green veins beneath by skin are disgusting.
I am too pale. like death. even the dead fear me.
My hips are hideous. they pop out like they're disjointed.
My legs are too skinny, my ankles are bone, they're so white even ghosts are ashamed of me.
My eyes are shaped like almonds why couldn't they be narrower?
My arms are too thin why couldn't they be stronger?
My teeth are not white enough, algunos estan chuecos, I will grin with my lips never exposing them.

I am Not beautiful.
I am clumsy. Not graceful. always bumping into things.
Tripping over my own feet. crashing into doorways. Stumbling down stairs. Constantly tripping and falling. shattering my own self esteem.
My shoulders are too hunched. My head always stares down.
My movements are not fluid. They are sharp and pointed and alarming.
I am NOT beautiful because I'm daring.
My movements are too strong, my eyes are too staring. I am too fierce with squared shoulders, too raw and untamed.
I am too much of a frightening force filled with "Fuck you's!"
I am all jeans and no dresses, too paled legged for beauty.
I am to Revolting in my constant state of rebelling.
Refusing stereotypical standards of femininity.
I am NOT BEAUTIFUL BECAUSE I'M TOO FUCKING GODDAMN GOOD FOR BEAUTIFUL.

I Am stunning petite shaped, pale faced, clumsy as all fucking hell, goddess.
I Am square headed, mean looking, natural, big nosed, small mouthed, too intelligent-for-you-to-keep-up with woman.

Fuck you. FUCK THIS.
Fuck all your preconceived notions that made me feel like less.
That made feel unloved. unwanted.
Broken.

Fuck you. Fuck THIS.
I will always remind the child inside me. that her humility is my strength. That her pain is my motivation. That her struggle is my battle.
Fuck you. Fuck this.
I remind myself ever day about how I HAD to learn to love myself.
I change the mantra of humility not recognizing its own beauty into the Mantra of Never giving up while Facing Demons Boldly.

Fuck you! Fuck This!
I am Beautiful. I am NOT ugly. I will Always love me.

Fuck you. Fuck This.
I will repeat the mantra of Never Giving up while Facing Demons Boldly.

I am Beautiful. I am not ugly. I will always love me.
I am beautiful. I am not ugly. I will always love me.
I AM beautiful. I am NOT ugly. I. will ALWAYS. Love me.

Self-Sabotage.

There's something in his eyes when he talks. a deep reflective flicker of hope.
Followed by pupils that flash the fierce damages of loss.
There's something in his eyes when talks.
Something shy and beautiful, emotional and raw.
There's an impenetrable heaviness in his soul
Like he's trying to carry the weight of sweet mother Tonantzin
on shoulders that are made for love.

There's something in his eyes when he talks,
His retinas still speaking long after his voice slips away into thought.
They whisper that he is humble and honest, noble and strong.
That he is a teyaochihuani, guerrero,
Warrior of life
even when the days make it impossible to move on,
even when sadness solidifies into cement pulling ankles down.

There's something in his eyes when talks.
It's the way he looks at the ground as if at any moment his heart might sprout,
watering the Earth with free flowing ventricles,
as if at any moment he might tunnel his way back to Anahuac,
to nuestra Mexicatlalli.

There's something in his eyes when he talks,
that reminds me of all my fears and self-sabotage.
There's something in his eyes when he talks,
something that scares my hardened fleshy walls of hidden vulnerability
and I realize,
that there's something in my eyes when I talk.
Something shy and beautiful, emotional and raw.

I realize,
that there's something in our eyes when we talk.
That our pupils are telling the same story
of two people who are too self sacrificing,
too analytical, too harsh on the selves they are
because they can't accomplish the selves they want to be.

There's something in his eyes when he talks,
that makes my hardened fleshy walls of hidden vulnerability turn soft.
There's something in his eyes when talks,
that makes me want to fight my doubting self-sabotage.

What is belong?

What is belong?

Belong is the way that man points his finger into your chest saying,
“Go back to where you came from, you don’t belong here.”
Belong is the way his silver-blue eyes dash into your line of sight,
a tomato-red flurry of misdirected anger.
Belong as in, Mexicans go over here South of the border,
because everyone crossing the border is Mexican.

Belong. You belong. Over there.

What they’re trying to say is,
You belong in your own country, slaving away in a field for less than minimum wage
Because NAFTA believes in free trade NOT fair trade.
You belong in a place where soil stings hands that have been calloused by the land, where skin cracks on palms and backs carry stories burned into flesh by the Sun.

Yes, you.
You belong.

You belong in a constant state of displacement,
You belong under surveillance, you belong barred behind concrete and desperation.
Who the fuck cares if you where working forty hours a week, treking through trash for the family you never get to see because they belong South of the border.
No, no. Who the fuck cares if you where working, breaking your back with tears in your eyes.
No, No. You belong in this concrete cell with those criminals because leaving home
for love is just as bad as selling drugs and murder.

You don’t belong says the silver-blue eyed man.
Let’s neglect US enterprises that inhabit third world countries forcing substandard styles of living.
Let’s neglect corrupt, US supported, governments that disembowel anyone that believes in fighting.
Let’s neglect soil stained red with blood instead of sunsets.
But yes. Yes, yes.
Let’s criminalize their citizens when they flee to this country because they’re given no other option than surviving.

But I don’t belong. Me?
Wait a second lets get this straight, let’s evaluate this historically.
I don’t belong.
The last time I checked English was not native to this continent.
No, this was a land of brown eyed dark people where Minnesota was Mee-knee-sho-tah
Sioux for smoke on water.
No, this land was and has always been my land riddled with non-English languages like
Quechua and Aymara, Nahuatl and Maya crawling over South and Central American
Mountain ranges.
I don’t belong? Me.
Let’s evaluate this historically.
My ethnicity was born on this continent.
Si, Mestizos created by conquest and lust.
Let’s evaluate this historically.
Texas, New Mexico and California belonged to México,
until of course, U.S. citizens snuck across the borders creating an influx of foreigners.
Even though Mexico granted them citizenship,
only to secede those states because those new citizens wanted to go back to of the US of A.
Let’s evaluate this historically,
To a time before Columbus and Pilgrims, to a time when my Ancestors’ ancestors crossed the Bering Strait.
Yes, they crossed that tiny fragmented land mass into North and South America

"You don't belong," says the silver-blue eyed man.
I don’t belong? WE don’t belong?
No, no… you see this land was made for traveling.

Rising smoke tickling ceilings.

In the midst of swirling copalli,
ai si ese copalli,
in the midst
of swirling incense, dried tree sap, rising smoke tickling ceilings
slips the beats of ayoyotes
of rhythmic feet slapping Tonantzin.

In the midst of sweat dripping down necks
and chests thumping with huehuetl's
In the midst of rattling sonaja's I have a vision
of water
white blue water streaming through rocks
pulled by the moon.
Nana Metztli smiling,
calling all the warrior women to arms
Saying, be strong Cihuatls, be strong.

Nana Metztli hanging in the sky with the imprint of the rabbit on her face,
The curled up tochtli sleeping,
Symbol of self sacrifice and spirit.
Nana Metztli whispers,
commune with nature, respect your yolcameh siblings
Nana Metztli becomes the Old man moon spirit, Tecciztecatl.
He says, embrace both dualities, masculine and feminine
he says, find balance in the roaring waves of the ocean
and the calm ripples of a lake.

Woman warrior moon, Coyolxauhqui
tells me, protect madre Coatlicue from warring hearts,
wage battle against your own self doubt,
Coyolxauhqui tells me to not be afraid of the deep, dark,
water drowned caverns.
She tells me to face them fully,
no matter how much the ones inside and beyond myself scare me

In the midst of el anscestral copalli,
ai si ese copalli,
I am pulled back from my vision
I am returned to dancing in the circle,
moving without thinking,
In the midst of that white spiraling copalli
I am left,
only breathing.

The Fierce Burning Flashes of Pen Marks.

Some where beyond the spectrum of cold flashing lights.
of fists fighting eyes that are sleepy eyed.
Some where beyond dark rectangular rooms
where insomnia stains drawings and scribbles of half written songs.
Some where beyond the long dragged out drip of night
lies the hated hopeful-deflated-elation
of dirty hands and sharp nails digging into dreams.

Some where beyond over sized blankets and humming central heating
lies the hated hopeful-deflated-elation of remembering
memories that are far worse than nightmares.
Of entrails cupped in women's hands after stab wounds
sliced stomachs sideways.
Of burned bodies after shotguns scared children into sprints.

Some where beyond the scope of hundred year old buildings
where the buzz of refrigerators lack comparison to flies on corpses.
lies the sound of memories stinging throats that continue screaming
through sleep.

Some where beyond the stand still of heavily hammered insomnia
and walls separating dark rectangular rooms
are the memories my mother never speaks of
and the history my grandmother never forgets to tell.
Some where between the silence of my mother trying to neglect memories,
of feigning amnesia,
lies the strength of my grandmothers old voice facing truth bravely.

Some where beyond heavily hammered insomnia where fists fight sleepy eyes,
I am a daughter waking her mother from dreams so terrifying
they depict long subdued reality.
Some where beyond orange walls and cold drafts.
I am a granddaughter trying to scrape history from my grandmothers back,
Inking life into pages, stripping truth from tight lipped family members
that don't want to remember where they came from.

Some where beyond the spectrum of cold flashing lights,
I am a great-granddaughter's daughter
igniting words like fiery explosions, lighting puffy-eyed teary-stained insomnia
with the fierce burning flashes of my pen marks.