GUILT TRIGGERED

 

As early as my heartbeat in her womb.

I learned to survive despite

my mother’s madness.

She jokes about dying.

talks about her death

as if I'd just accept it.

Move on like the days unphased.

She lives in her own pain

that she cannot see my own.

 

I worry about how we will

pay for the funeral because

there is No inheritance.

No trust fund.

No savings.

We always lived paycheck to paycheck.

Now my mother is living

disability check to disability check.

 

I worry because I am the oldest.

She made me a parent too.

A responsible adult.

I scraped my palms reaching for financial stability.

Working two jobs while going to school full-time.

Survived being financially abused.

 

I wiped the blood off my knees

from falls seeking maternal love

that worked odd hours.

More and more hours.

I picked the scabs from my elbows

when I’d crawl back home,

knowing it would never again be home.

 

I know for a fact that my siblings

will not know what to do.

How to pick out a casket.

How to choose what clothes she will wear.
Which photos will be on display for the viewing.

How we will tell everyone.

Who we will not tell.

Where we would get flowers.

Who would open up their home

for condolences, prayers, and black coffee.

 

This will be a somber day

for my mother has done away

with most of her friendships

Has cut off her sisters-

Parents gone.

 

I don't know anything about funerals either

but I've always known how

to get out of hard situations.

I’ve done it all of my life

even when no one was looking.

Part of me wishes

I would just go first

so that at least they'd take

care for me for a change.

 

My mother has made sure

I am the only one that will

accompany her all the way to the grave.

She has insured to guilt trip me into

knowing what her last wishes will be.

It is how she has held me for years.

 

Her mental health has made it worse.

I still take the the phone calls

not knowing how she will find a new way to trigger me.

Not knowing how she will find another way

to weaken the foundation I learned to lay out for myself.

I haven't learned to re-parent myself completely

so I am left flailing- Gasping for air.

 

My mother still lives in her own pain

that she doesn't recognize mine.

She pretends that I will not care if she dies

but I learned to live through all of the pain

she absorbed before I was even thought.

​

​

#niunamenos

Inspired by an article in Center for Strategic and International Studies

 

Ya se olvidaron de nosotros.

Ya cerraron los archivos

con nuestros cuerpos mutilados.

Ya borraron nuestros nombres.

 

2019 was the deadliest for Mexican women.

They weren’t dying in masses elsewhere

other than in their own bloodthirsty soil.

3500 bodies and counting.

From Juarez to the southern border

there is the smell of flesh that has

disappeared in between the stench

of corruption and filthy fingerprints

of putrid men.

 

40% of them knew their killer,

These were not shadows in the dark

that decided today they would

Strangle

Drown

Suffocate

Stab

Unknown victims.

 

77% temen por sus vidas

Algunas

Madres

Todas

Hijas

Muchas

Hermanas

Mayoria

Amigas

Varias

Novias

They leave home

no guarantee of their return.

 

Their names painted into walls

in memoriam of who they were

and who they couldn’t become.

 

     +

  Cindy             +

                    Ana Luz              +

                                            Citlali

                                                                      +

                                                               Blanca

 

93% systemic impunity rates

There is never a killer found

investigated or charged.

These women are

Discarded

Unnamed

Unclassified

Unfound

Bound

to the walls of their homes

If they wish to survive.

What is survival

If the murderer

is the one that knows

their names?

 

                           +

                 Lucero Areli                                                                        +

                                                                                                      Marcelina

           +

    Lorena                                       +

                                                Bianca                           +

                                                                                   Sandra

 

Women rise up to the establishment

Hold government offices hostage.

They carry red paint on their hands

Signs of the bloody handprints

that later get found in

 

Dumpsters                                               Streets                         Alleyways

​

                        Mutilated                 Unclothed            Skinned                     Tortured

 

No form of suffering is ruled out.

No age limit. No body type.

No eye shape or color.

They are one in the same.

                         +

                   Carmen                                       +

                                                 +               Paola

                                          Angelica                                            +

          +                                                                               Maria Elena

       Elisa                     +

                             Josefina

                                                             +

                                                         Martha                            +

                                                                                             Lesly

No government leadership

valiant enough to stop this hatred

as if these men had forgotten

they were birthed by women.

 

Ya se olvidaron de nosotros.

Ya cerraron los archivos

con nuestros cuerpos mutilados.

Ya borraron nuestros nombres.