and i still miss them

            My family, any family, your family, how wonderful and cruel.

           My relatives like veins attached, my blood pumps into them and theirs into my body and yet I feel nothing but heart break and suffering when I think about them. The heartbreak I was never prepared for, the woman in my life have told me to stand up for myself but when I speak my words with my mouth because I've been desired by a man in our family, I'm beaten down. The woman in my life have protected the man and how long will that go on for?

            It's not a generational thing; everyone has protected the men and I'm left to save myself because I'm the woman navigating the world and I'm the first to say no to a man. The woman, taught false words of affirmation and I'm the one to say no.

            And the next time I see them? A heart break from distances away. You can have them, I say to him, you can have all of them. They label me crazy like the men of society call me, this time my own family spells it out softly in women's voices.

IM CRAZY, IM CRAZY, IM CRAZY, IM CRAZY.

I'M NOT WELL IN THE HEAD BECAUSE I'M A WOMAN WHO'S BEEN IN THE UKNOWN. IM THE WOMAN WHO SAID NO TO THE MAN AND NO TO DISRESPECT SO I'M THE CRAZY ONE TO CALL OUT THE MAN MARRIED TO MY TÍA WHO'S KNOWN ME SINCE THE WOMB.

"YOU LOOK SEXY." I WAS 20.

"CLEAN THAT UP LIKE A GOOD GIRL." I WAS 22.

If only verbal, what's next?

                                                                                    When does it stop?

            It doesn't because you want to be complacent in his attitude. Those dearest to me checked up on me once and forgot about the rest rather than start a fight. I suppose we love differently, if my cousins told me that I'd fight generations before I turned my back on them. Disgusting. You must be like your mothers. And I too like mine. I duel, I think, I linger in my thoughts, I don't ignore because I am human, and I feel my feelings and prevent the acts from happening again by forgetting I was ever apart of you.

            And the worst part of it? I miss you.

            Maybe we were never meant to be together, because you and I don't think the same, just our blood will match and I'll walk here and you'll walk there.