Gabi, A Girl in Pieces

Poetry helps heal wounds. Makes them tangible. At the poetry reading I read a poem. A prophecy I wrote down. Almost couldn't go through with it. But it came out hurried and hot and by the end my tongue was on fire.

And if anyone has trouble understanding that, well, they can kiss my ass.

Why is every mom's concern about sex? There are more important things in life, like school, careers, poetry, books, ice cream, or learning how to make the perfect chocolate cake. It's so damn frustrating.

Living a lie is painful, and doesn’t do anyone any good. I had to be true to myself, because, either way, God would know if I was lying.

And yesterday she sent for a priest who threatened him with God - of course, because everyone knows that the mission God has left for his worshippers is to hate people and damn them to hell.

I don’t want us to be ashamed anymore (we all were crying by this point) of being pregnant or gay or poor or having a crackhead dad! I want us to be fucking proud of ourselves. (...) So we have to be proud and always remember who we are and when we make it to college, who we were.

If words are our weapons, we must ask ourselves, why should we use rocks and sticks when we have tanks available?

The more I write, the more creative I feel and the more I feel I have to share.

I am going to have a grilled cheese sandwich and think about this precarious situation

This skin thing always pisses me off. What I need is a nopal on my forehead to let the world know about my roots. One of those flat cactus plants that my grandpa grew behind the house before he died--nopal en la frente. Yup. That would solve all my problems.

The way my tia looks at Raul is the way I look at Martin. He makes her happy and helps her see that she is stronger than she thought she was. It's not that he makes her stronger, but he definitely helps her see that she has been strong all along.

Do not forget about the thorns on the roses when you say that love is like a red red rose.

Then she wrote him a referral for using foul language, and I heard her mutter under her breath (because I was sitting right next to her desk when this all went down), "... and if I could give him one for being a fucking idiot, I'd do that too." I don't know if anyone else heard her, but if they did, no one said anything. I so did not realize that teachers cussed or that they didn't like some of their students. At that moment, Ms. Abernard became my new hero.

People are who they are no matter how much you want them to be somebody else, Gabi. And we have two choices: love and accept them with all their faults. Or not. In my case, my parents are choosing to not accept me because I can’t change, and I won’t pretend to be something I’m not. Your dad was addict because that is what he wanted to be. There was nothing you could have done to change that.

…by Tracie Morris, “Project Princess.” It’s about a girl from the projects who doesn’t care what people think about her—she just does what makes her feel confident. Then I looked myself straight in the eyes and said, “Gabi, get over it. You look spectacular. You look amazing, so stop your bitching or do something that makes you feel better.” I took a deep breath and took off my shorts and shirt and stepped out on the beach like I owned that shit and didn’t give a fuck about all the skinny girls around me. After a while, I didn’t feel like an outsider and nobody made comments or even cared about what I looked like. The other think about being fat is that you spend too much damn time worrying about being fat and that takes time away from having fun. But I decided today would be different. And it was.

I wanted the zine to make people think about how girls are raised to think about our bodies and who gets to decide how we think about them.

Love is like a white geranium. It grows like a weed overpowering the ground– if you don’t take care of it prune it shape it it climbs walls and hides insects that slowly eat at it making it die. Easily grown and easily withered.

Who would have known that writing a poem would be so much work?

Her God—or the God her church has told her about—doesn’t forgive easily and is more of a punisher and less of a lover than the God my mon has taught us about.