“We fight because we believe.” I had it tattooed on my arm when I was twenty and I think I made it up but I can’t remember because that was lifetimes ago.

most of all, I am thankful. Grateful for that girl who never thought she’d survive. Didn’t want to. Hoped she’d die. Suicidal ideation but too much vanity to act. 

The child who wept for her mother. For her father. For her siblings. For herself. The girl who sometimes couldn’t believe that those wails that made her flinch were her own.

God force in human form.

A cutter with an army of platelets fighting to orchestrate the scabs to cover her wounds and make her whole once more. Invincible. 

Hips too big, shoulders too wide, this too that and some body dysmorphia with an insatiable desire for perfection.

A cosmic being, a goddess, a genius whose mind works faster than her mouth, who’s heart works only harder than her tongue.

Self loathing. Depressed. Anxiety stricken. Growing OCD. Shit brown eyes. Nothing special. A lacuna. nice word.

An untouchable warrior. So graceful in battle, always in combat. Even when she feels weak, deep down there is a voice telling her “You’re stronger than your opponents. You have the blood of your ancestors running through your veins and the prayers of your nonna to carry you against the wind. An alternate universe version of you that’s in the vortex right now, right here, right now, willing you to better things and your mother’s mistakes guiding you through the miserable labyrinth that should have been your life but somehow wasn’t.”

Sleeping on a park bench. owning nothing but a garbage bag. 

Haunting kalon, simply marvelous.

You fought because you believed and because of that fight you believed that you deserved better.

And you do.
And you did.

And you’re here.