My Specialtea

There is a ghost haunting my house She is i In another life I ended it years ago She wanders aimlessly down the halls Peering into the life i have made For us For her and i The girl i left behind I pack up the room she loved Tuck away the pillowcases she soaked with tears most nights I take one last look behind me She waves goodbye Behind her The father whom she used to love Hands on her shoulders And she Standing small

They have taken the lands of our ancestors and enslaved our people to them the earth they once revered now they toil over for endless hours and while the language of our ancestors no longer flows from our tongues it still courses through our blood our hands remember what our mind cannot i catch glimpses of it to this day and my body understands what my ears cannot lo veo en la cocina de mi mamá y en el jardín de mi abuelita en sus remedios caseros hechos de llervas, plantas, y maseca en el maize que mi mamá cosechaba cuando era niña y en el cabello que me prohibía que me cortara en los listones que ella me trenzaba y en los ríos a los que me llevaba en las mariposas que ella toma como una señal y en su sabiduría que entiende cuando cambiará el tiempo my ancestors language has been lost to my tongue but i don’t need to speak it to understand what they knew

I had a dream The world was ending Fires engulfed the land And the land gave way to the sea Melted glaciers turned to rivers And rivers carved paths into stone Stone cold were the people watching it all It was far from home after all Just another video playing across the millions of screens Pandemics and disease A hive mind rising to power despite being a machine Putting everyone at unease The impending future A parasite leaving no stone unturned Woe to the people Who desecrated the earth as it burned And in that moment when the end was near Blush curtains diffused the break of dawn The morning sunrise seeping through Beckoning me to wake up A rose glow enveloped me And as i looked around I noticed A matching blush colored bed and sheets Small hands and equally small feet lay under the covers The world had a slight softness to it The edges not quite as sharp And the colors still bright It was 2009 and the world was alright

i never thought this day was coming but the time has come to say goodbye you hold my darkest moments witnessed the traumas that made me who i am and my happiest tears that softened the edges i carved to protect who i was you heard me say my first “i love you” and you watched me write i hate you many times you’ve been through it all with me from the start all my many phases i decorated and redecorated you at least a hundred times you were my solace when the home around me crumbled to the ground but you also hold your own secrets even i am not privy to the odd creaks and tumbles that come from within your walls that keep me up at night and make me watch my back a child’s imagination at play a reflection of the unready woman i am to face the vastness of possibilities beyond my childhood bedroom

Maybe I am not a selfish human being Maybe I was just five And maybe I was not a bad sister But just trying to survive Maybe I am not cold Frigid and unempathetic Like I have been told But was a child carrying burdens twice my size And why is it so That the names we are given before adulthood Are the ones that never die Can a child not be allowed to be a child Without it defining them for life?