You gotta love that part-writing session

 of your life with the roaches. I gotta love that part of the roaches. I heard that thought in my brain. I was washing dishes and the memory of my old life was trying to come back to me. I wanted to look up a TV show so that I take it out. But you gotta love that part of your life, with the roaches. 

Bugs they been around

In DR the roaches would be really big and the worst ones would fly

that means if they got mad at you they would go up and give you eye contact

it was the scariest for me

when i lived in _______, it was the rats for me. they came out at night. and forget about the basement.

it was made of completely of concrete blocks and the water it would come out water and roaches.

I realize now looking back the place we were living in was infected.

I had worms come out of my butt every time I went #2.

This was normal for me. You can get used to anything. Especially if it happens everyday. 

Years later, I had an American aunt that had married my Dominican uncle then became a nurse. She said she took my uncle to the doctor and they gave him a concoction that made all the worms come out all at once. He was about 50 when this happened. 

I said, wow! I wasn't given such a thing but since coming to America, no more worms came out when I pooped.

Now looking back I wonder. Where was my mom? Did she know these things? Did she care?

It hurts me when she says my son is skinny because I saw a picture of myself at 10 and I look like skin and bones. 

Did she care, did she know? Why is she so concerned about my son, and once again (why once again, when else did she do this?) she disregards me, Like I am nothing?

She took Cesar, to the States with her, he's a boy. She loves Alex, he' s a boy. She has a history of putting men ahead of her, being the floormat that they wipe their mud in. 

When I hadn't seen her in a year and a half she cried when she saw my son and hugged him. I said, wow I am here too. I took that to mean, she really did not miss me. When we speak its all how's Alex's eyes? and etc. I am just a person that is judged for how well Alex is being taken care of. My identify, now gone. Before Alex was here, she just went on her life ignoring me. But she did call. She always called. Even when you don't want your mom to call, especially when you don't want your mom to call, they know. they call. when you want your friends to call, or a new guy that you might like. nope, once again, its just my mom. ask me how i am. and you blob something out uninterested and wonder when will other people call you, when will other people care. (I am doing to her the same thing she does to me? why did it take me going away to college for you to ask how I am? when I was around you all those years you ignored me and never asked. Still, when I went back to Bayonne after giving birth, you still didn't ask. it was how is the baby and did you eat? and then the daily guilt trip and disappointment for whatever I muttered.) didn't, you know, everyday was the same. he cried, I breastfeed him. he cried if I went to the bathroom to pee, he cried if I took the fastest shower in the world. he cried while I tried to breathe, he cried as I tried to remember a life where baby's cries were not the song and the background to my life. 

Being away from people exposes them. 

Someone might say your mom does not matter. right. She matters nothing. done. logic. doesn't work on feelings. feelings cannot be rationalized out. 

How can mom not matter? When she's the only one that keeps hanging around. keeps calling, keep saying how are you doing. she keeps sending money. she never gave up on me. Kind of. even when I was at the mental hospital she fought. She fought with the people that were taking care of me, the patient. she was there, only knowing a couple of words in English looking at them like there was a severe injustice. i was there, half translating, half tired. I knew her fighting would amount to nothing. I didn't know what she was fighting. she was distrusting. she always was, when it comes to doctors and things. complete un-self aware. she gets mad when you tell her about herself, like hey you don't pick up the phone. then in private she says to me and my sister, you are my daughters you are supposed to defend me! We say, but this is true. You don't pick up the phone. She grunts, mad, looks out the window. She has daughters that don't lie to her. We tell her, you want us to say something else? Then pick up the phone when we call. Then we'll say that. 

She admits no wrongs. It's always your fault. She plays the victim role. It frustrates me to hear her speak now, because now I see how much she plays. Everything she says is manipulation and complete, let's do what you want. its a no win, I want nothing, only your choice matters so when shit hits the fan she's never to blame. after all, she didn't 'decide'.

She gave up her power. to us, her kids. to her drunken husbands and loves. she is fiercely afraid of being alone. she she fought when Cesar left to college then me, she said she wanted to move there. then when Cesar moved to Georgia, she said she was going to follow. At one point, me and my sister were so stressed out because she said she would adopt a kid. AT that time, me my sister and my mom all lived in a 2 bedroom and no one was ever home most of the time. especially mom, every night some church event. so we knew if she did this, it was our lives that would change, not hers. my mom wanted to do it for the money. my boyfriend, Ryan at the time told me of his aunt that had adopted 5 kids. and how you need more money than they give you. its never enough. you need to be financially stable to do this, not depend on that money.

That's the lesson she has taught me. if you work hard and give your kids a place to sleep and food to eat and nothing else. its not enough. at least for me. I wanted someone to guide me, to talk to me, to tell me their stories. for God's sake I wanted to know my mom!

But she had locked herself up in a box to tight I wonder if she ever knew who she was. spending every moment at work or in a bible study group or church event. and when she was in a relationship, in the room going over secret meetings, probably about money. 

I heard that he beat her, abused her? something. I heard from my brother's friend. I was embarrassed that someone outside my house was telling me what my stepdad did to my mom. Why didn't they tell me? 

When there was a bomb threat, mom talked to my brother and said I had to stay home. Reason? I couldn't 'protect' myself. There was always doubt when it came to me. I did everytihng she wanted but I was not good enough. I wasn't born with a dick. 

She verbally abused me for years. yelling at me every single day, after high school.My brother dealt with mom by always wroking, trying ot save her by making money. My sister, she ran away by never coming home. Me, I tried to save her by coming home and doing everything she wanted in order to make her happy. But she never was.

When she yelled at me,  I don't know for what. Maybe she was mad. Cesar didn't come home. Lesly didn't come home. I came home. I wanted to save her. I cleaned the house. my mission is life was to make her happy. I literally went crazy doing that. One day, she told me to clean the walls. I had cleaned everything, there was nothing else to do. So she said, clean the walls!

And then I did. So I guess when McDoanlds, my first job told me to do the same, something they told me to do. something in me must have told them, she has no sense of self worth. she won't say no. they took advantage of that shit.

When they find out I have a play they will probably say, you still talking about that? As if we ever did. That was the crime, I cared. they just keep sweeping things under the rug. and they linger and I feel my sister's resentment when I am around her. and my mom and Cesar will go to the corner to tell each other some secrets that they haven't told any of us yet, and probably never will.

My mom always whisper when it's about money. so maybe that's it. 

In the distance I can talk about it. Still not with ya'll, ya'll never been ready to talk about it. ya'll never asked what happened. Just kept going with your lives. and when a friend met you that's when you mentioned the mental hospital. with my friend, when I wasn't in the room. and it was to make fun of me. like I am weak for going to the mental hospital. My friend told me this when he housed me when i was homeless. 

This is the only disease that people make fun of you for. The one that they can't see. If you see someone bleeding because they have been stabbed you wouldn't think it was funny or make fun of them for that. Mental health is the one when you are bleeding but no one sees it. Then they want to ask you why, as if you know why you feel these things. Then they get angry and blame you, because you have the disease and they don't.  

I was told once by a supervisor at work that mental health is like a kid having a tantrum. He was trying to explain something that he had never experienced. Its like someone that has never flewn a plane explaining to you how it works. Okay.

My mom said my grandmother said depression doesn't exist, so therefore I was not depressed. this is years later when I was going through post pardum depression, a special kind of depression that happens after giving birth. She said to just get over it, shake it off. I yelled at her in frustration:, You think I want to cry? you think I want to feel bad every single day when I wake up? she stopped talking. I was crying as I said this. 

This is depression. you scream but no one hears you. you have panic attacks. you experience everything alone. because even if a person is around you, they are not you. they are not in your body. They don't know what you feel. and you have never felt this before so how can you explain it? make it worse if its happening to a kid, they are already struggling to have the language to explain what's going on.

My teenage years my mom would tell me when she saw I wasn't happy, what, you can't pay the rent?

I hated that. It was as if  my emotions didn't count unless I had to pay the rent. I didn't pay the rent I was a full time student making the best grades so that I can go to college and get an education and all the things that was expected of me as I was taken out of paradise (DR) and my happy life (my aunt, her son and my sister and I).

America was miserable. 12 people in a 2 bedroom. We had a long living room.  A long space between the bedroom so there were 2 beds. There were the saints on top of my grandmother's bed. and adult kids that still lived with their mother. and wives that moved in, like some scary movie where you are supposed to be stable and have a house with your own family. but no, instead you get married to a guy have kids with him and you move to another country and have to live with his mom and his other siblings.

If you fight, you go outside but the cold is freezing the snow over-powering. the only good thing was the school was so close by. we walked 5 blocks and we were in high school. my grandfather was always waiting for me to make a mistake so that he can tell it to someone else and further prove his hypotheses, that I was stupid. I liked school because that was the only place I heard something good about me, I was smart. but in that house. I was always stupid. I was given an order then I go and do it and I never did it the way they imaged I should. for that, I was called stupid. It was hard my favorite uncle once time called me stupid. It broke my hear. Eh tu, Brutus?

Mom found a guy, we went to McDonalds. we were little kids, so we played in the playground. Before you know it. We moved, we got out of 25th street (2 bedroom, 12 people apartment). She married the guy (must have been a good conversation). He was a drunk. Now we didn't live with all the people but now I would get calls from mom telling me she had to work an extra shift at the factory and not to come home. because he (marriage makes things official so he went from stranger to stepdad) was home and he would get drunk. and I was shocked, my mom did not allow us to go outside after the sun went down. I compared myself to a bird in a cage for most of my teenage years according to my composition notebooks (titled moongoddess? no, musicGoddess because I liked music. Mariela, she was MoonGoddess). do you know the ones? They have a black and white print. 

But when we moved to Andrew street (same town in Bayonne, in an extra street between 17th and 16th), we had roaches. they were impossible to get rid of. 25th street, roaches as well. as an adult, I haven't had to deal with roaches. I was doing those dishes in the current time and I thought how different my life looks now that roaches and rats are a memory but all those years they were a normal everyday occurrence. as well as the worms that came out of my ass. 

Roaches flying in DR, the big ones coming out all over the counter when you turned off the light, making me scared to get up in the middle of the night .

writing session 2/8/21 2:53am done.

add on, 2/10/21 9:04pm done.