Papa always told me I wasn't a porcelain barbie.

He said I was too dark to be lovely, I had no pink cheeks nor colored eyes.

He refused to stay home most of the time,

neglecting me so I'd get used to the way boys would treat me later on in life,

or so he put it.

Soy la canela en tu cafe, 

I whispered ever so softly in his ear,

I whispered to the roses and anyone wiling to hear.

I wrote him poems but he never wrote me anything so I left.

Hablan y hablan, nunca diciendo la verdad.

Papa didn't support my decisions and never told me to be me.

Ve y calienta las tortillas.

He never held my hand and I was too afraid to speak.

With broken shards and mascara stains I learned in the bathroom floor what it was I was missing.

Perhaps he never wrote me poems or gave me roses and perhaps papa never said I love you

but I had two feet and that's all I needed to stand.

I spent half my life drowning in an ocean of loathing and despair,

I tied two boulders to my feet but I would always surface.

Slowly I learned that craters in my noses were fine and that petals under my eyes weren't so bad.

I learned to love the things people forget to notice,

the crawling worm, falling tree,

broken bones, bruised knee.

The coffee stain on your wall that formed four days ago cries for attention

but you're too caught up in your life.

The cloud shaped like a man stares at you but you're a dreamer with the fear of being woken

clinging on to you like the smell of raw meat.

Papa told me I wasn't lovely but I believe I am.

I believe I am because Picasso's Art is seen as lovely and if I were a painting,

I'd be Picasso's "The Old Guitarist." 

I'd sell for mllions and give people a sense of longing and blue but nonetheless I'd be lovely.

I'd be lovely because I am the same feeling you get after drinking a cup of warm coffee at 5am in

the freezing morning.

I would be lovely plainly and simply because I am real.

I am the dirt and roots, I am the worm and leaves, I am the sun and moon, 

I am me.