what is love?

what is love but a fantasy? What is love but an illusion created by society? What is love when the ones closest to you cannot reciprocate? What is love when your mother calls you a prostitute, a whore, a slut. When she kicks you out for falling in love? When cultures clash and life happens and she doesn’t understand? When you are the first to graduate in the entire family and she doesn’t care? “don’t do it for me, do it for yourself,” she says. What is love when her culture teaches her not to value education because tradition dictates a womyn can’t fall in love with those whom don’t belong to that culture? When her experiences dictate to put guilt upon her two daughters that love is a taboo, that they are dirty if they even think about it? What is love when they try so hard to make her proud and all she thinks about is money and maintaining that overpowering control, called pride and indifference? What is love when your mother calls you trash, shit, and worse, nothing? When she disowns you and throws you out of her heart? What is love when the one who is supposed to give you unconditional love and love you for who you are does not do that because it is a cycle that is being repeated generation after generation. When she herself didn’t grow up being loved by her mother because there was no “time” for that when she had mouths to feed? What is love when at age 16 she flees to look for love and for a better life and she gets raped? Twice? Abandoning her mother, who despite the lack of love, she would die for?
Yes I know her story. I know their stories, of love, or the lack thereof. I was born because of her loneliness. She thought it was going to work out. less than 2 years. They fought hasta sacarse la sangre. The blood flowed like her tears, but her pride was all she had. She grew strong , ever since her mother knocked her out cold and she fainted and fell to the ground. She grew stronger when they forced her virginity out. She grew even stronger when she fought his machismo and won her dignity, but lost the one she loved. As the years progressed, this strength has turned into remorse, into jealousy, into a hunger for manipulation. This sweet girl who all she wanted was to be loved couldn’t even get that, at any stage in her life. She has turned into the shadow of depression, where she does not allow herself to comprehend and support her two beautiful, strong, independent, educated daughters. Time is ticking. It’s wasting away. She is losing power. She is falling deeper and deeper into an enveloping remorse that doesn’t let her breathe. There is so much pressure. So much pain. So much hunger…. For love. For companionship. For understanding. For nourishment. For alleviation.
And here I am in the middle. Dodging the bullets. Como una espada contra la pared. Sin poder decidir. Sin poder hacer nada porque no se trata de una persona. Se trata de una cultura entera donde algunas veces el amor es secundario, y el sobrevivir lo lleva a uno a olvidarse de que existe el amor. When one must forget about love, and forget about maintaining that strong connection with the only two people you have. This is a story about a sister who is tired of showing love to her mother and trying to make her feel proud, and yet only receives dirty words in return. This is a story about a mother who never grew up feeling true love, not from her mother, not from the one she thought she loved, and not from herself. This is a story about a daughter who remains silenced and retains it all. In here and in here. And never speaks a word and only occasionally cries in silence to herself. Ashamed. Guilty. Powerless and inferior. Who always asks herself, what is love but a fantasy? And illusion created by society? A lie?
As this story continues, more questions are asked than answered as she strolls along the sidewalks of her life and the corners of her mind. As she struggles to break free from this emotional trend that consumes her everyday and prevents her from stepping out of that comfort zone… because guilt is all she can feel.

tainted imitations

pressed and compressed into this silence that must be indulged fully to acquire some sense of success. stressed and depressed because we fall into the holes into the cracks into the darkest corners of guilt. where must one draw the line between being up and being down. being more and being less. what must one consider as being less when all we've got is us. our two hands full of callouses and cuts. burns and scrapes. dirt and years of carrying the tears of our past. dressed in attire that contradicts our origin, but that must be expressed in order to fit in. to assimilate. to be considered more. must we imitate what is being dictated to us to impress those who messed with our dignity. our fervor, our great dedication to germinate the seeds of passion. we are painted,   tainted and  well acquainted but does this mean that we are betraying those closet to us when we have to explain why we do what we do? why we can't stay? why our comfort zone is no longer a safe zone to engage in because sooner or later it will turn its back against us and constrain our every chance of basic survival? should i break apart and decipher what it is means to be an educated mexican girl who despite being born here feels like she isn't worth anybody's time? where do these feelings of insecurity, inferiority, and insatiability stem from? painted, tainted, and well acquainted am i when the more i move ahead the more inconceivable my path seems to be...i am painted with the colors of red, white, blue, and green..i am tainted with the stars and stripes, serpent and eagle...with two histories that whether i like it or not, are merged into one being that must learn to imitate and take from both worlds, yet clash with each being and indulge in a bitter engagement of expression when one is seen as less? a piece of her breaks off when she cannot even pronounce words, phrases from the language her mother bared in her womb. she has become a mere imitation of nothing. she has been tainted with ideas that are not her own and in her state of confusion and delusion..her wounds grow deeper and deeper as her story gets longer and longer...as her story gets tainted and she sinks deeper in this pressed and compressed illusion of two clashing worlds...

Blind is all we are

Like the little duckling who follows her mother, I have learned to follow blindly. Yes, that's how these corporations want us to be...blind. Blind about what events occur around us just kilometers away and around the globe. Blind about where our water comes from and where our so-called "food" comes from, how it's made and what ingredients constitute it. Blind about how our money gets spent and distributed. Blind about the truth behind closed doors. Meetings, conspiracies, bribes, profits, misleading talks, lies,social classes clashing, competing, fighting, resisting, charging against the flames of the opponent. Using every weapon imaginable. Raising their voices without yielding, with the sound of our loud stories comes the truth to the forefront of reality and as more and more people find out their is no turning back. We are living, breathing, testimonies of what the world is leading towards. It is up to us, we must educate our tongues. Do not forget that being blind will let fall deeper into the abyss.

Appreciation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYDUwLo-CsI&feature=related

Instruments of expression

wind. changing winds. trade winds. rhythms of winds. voices. voices of the past. calling. recalling. blending in distant time and drifting with the crowd. a whole turbulence of voices. chaos everywhere and yet one cannot pinpoint exactly where the center of it is. Light. what is light but a lie? time. what is time when the light is so far? repetitions. blending with sound. sounds. growing and growing and growing. keeping the right tempo at the wrong time. playing with unsound intervals that defeat all understanding of stability. let's break the rules for one moment. let's lean towards yang for one moment and shift towards yin in the next instance. let us not be surprised by the immense sense of balance. with the pluck of each string. with the shift of each key. let the winds carry your every humble wish. welcome the change with open arms. let the voices impregnate your mind and allow yourself to not be one and alone but one and whole. one and part of that earth gives you life. give it life. give it respect.

erased

disrespect. anger. selfishness. regret. sadness. I am full of remorse and can't seem to stop. I'm an ongoing machine that lets the pistol shoot at whatever or whomever stands in it's way. In my way. My father. or the one who claims to be my biological father. He gets the bullet. has gotten hit twice from my direction. In addition to all the dozen or so he's already received from life. It's really sad how i see myself disrespect him and my mother. I judge them. I don't look up to them. They have no education. And it's really not their fault but i'm mad. and that makes me selfish. I feel selfless and lonely and helpless. I have no one. i run away from school because of stress. I run home to stress and a negative environment. i judge her. I am no one to judge her. I judge him. I am no one to judge him. My only sister doesn't love me anymore. I don't love her anymore.
stop me! it's rude. it's shameful. it's sad. it's breaking my family apart. it's breaking me apart. why am i so selfish? why am i so superficial? why can i not comprehend? i want to talk to him. i want to.  but his mere presence causes me stress and i feel too much negativity. it's rage. built up. i think. what else could it be? what other explanation could there be for my behavior?

sacrifices in the rain

today i learned a lesson. well actually i learned many little lessons compiled into one overall lesson. the rain is beautiful...it reminds me of how vulnerable humans are...it reminds me of touch. Just the simple wet droplets, thousands of them at a time. the sounds of splashing and crunching twigs and branches underneath my feet. the sound of nothing behind the smashing water on the concrete and the tiny rivers flowing down and underneath the tires of modern humanity. my skin, refreshed and alive it. It was almost out of life and moisture. It was almost out of hope. Strange feeling i get when i hear the rush of water storming down to earth. Strange feeling i get when i get touched with such coldness. My energy has risen, my mood has found hope, my life has been given a second chance. Just when all these emotions twirl in my mind and soul i get hit with the realization that people around me are sacrificing something much more important than simple days like these, if that makes sense at all.

parents. mothers. mother. my mother...do i really know her? or do i just know the woman who is 30 and not 48? do i know what she feels, thinks, learns, hates? do i know what her every day schedule is or what her favorite show to watch is? do i know how her day went today or yesterday or if she is struggling with anything be it school, work or her emotional life? why am i wasting precious time not getting to know her? i once told myself this long ago: one will never get to fully know a person because we are always growing and changing and learning about ourselves and our limits. our reasons and our emotions change through elapses in our life. it is quite amazing how i have changed in just a couple of months.

we all make sacrifices, even if they are minimal we make them and quite periodically. at least in my world. mothers, as we have all heard and surely know, are those humans who make the most and as i've come to realize, they make sacrifices from the time they give birth to the time of their death.

happiness. what is that truly? can it even be measured? can it be given a number? i know this is so ambigious but it really thought about it all makes sense..it's abstract. that's the point right? why am i asking so many questions now? well, i always ask questions, everyday. all day. my mind is a little question-production factory just waiting for some input, or the answers to come along and ship them out of my mind.

get to know your mother. ask her how her day was. and be genuine about it. Ask her what her dreams are and help her achieve them. When she grows distant, that is a cry of help that she is not well, so don't ignore it or say that it will pass. It is a forward loop where the hole keeps getting bigger and bigger and the pile of rubbish keeps piling up.

LOVE her with all your might and learn to make sacrifices for her. Learn to grow with her and learn from her. She is your one and only true teacher, companion, and greatest friend. Don't let her down. Make her feel what you feel when that rain touches your eyelids, forehead, cheeks, and lips. Have her drink your energy just like you absorbed the freshness of nature today. Heal her just how you were healed on this day.