My Skin is Brown
Piel Florecida
My soul feels ripped away from nature.
Nature- where I connect deepest with God.
Ripped away, knocking me off my balance.
It can be painful.
My soul thrives when in nature, and now that I’m back in New York City, my body feels empty and robbed of an entire nutrient.
I never knew I needed that nutrient until I got it.
I feel a void in my body.
I have done a lot of work to energetically and spiritually clear things from my path that no longer serve me, but my body has not fully felt it all the way through. And bypassing my body’s experience is NOT the way.
The memory my body has imprinted on it after spending 6 MONTHS submerged in the sweet splendor of our earth on a tropical island.
The grass, trees, and soil abundantly all around.
Green.
Wet.
Smokey.
Moist.
With grounds that breathe air, steam, and smoke.
With soil that actively connects with the branches above it.
Branches married to the roots.
These connections all imprinted on my body and they now feel severed by both the illusion and reality of time and space.
It hurts.
My body hurts.
My lungs burn and contract. My throat tightens. My heart aches. My mind disorients.
Stakes feel even higher to experience this through a global pandemic with symptoms that are potentially like the one’s I'm experiencing.
The sense of imminent danger lurking.
I hold my body as it can’t seem to understand why this thing is gone now.
Like a child, she cries.
“They were my vitamins. Minerals. Nutrients. Nourishment for my body. This was good for me.”
This was OUR sacred mother’s milk.
I was embraced by nature and I embraced Her.
Together, we danced in the wild.
What would possess me to leave and come back to the city?
Truth possessed me.
And She whispered it was time to move again.
And on command, I did.
I trust you, yes.
With my eyes closed, yes.
When I can not see, yes.
When my heart breaks, yes.
In death, yes.
My soul thrives in the wild.
My soul thrived while breathing that rich Dominican air.
Now it's as if the air has been stolen from my lungs.
From these lenses, NYC seems horrible. And to some degree, it feels true to the part of me that can barely feel the pulse of the Earth in this city.
Irrationally, demonizing this urban city like we often demonize our humanity on this path of divinity.
I am both.
New Yorker and Dominicana.
Urban and Campesina.
Latina and Morena.
Human and Divine.
So very human of us to dualize our existence! (LOL)
This is home as well.
New York City.
I went through a glorious tropical portal and I came back a new woman.
A woman fueled by her deep connection to her roots.
Whose old wells have dried up and have closed for business.
A woman who has left the junkie life behind her.
Still, I hear the screeching sounds of my thirst and hunger wanting to bang on the door of all my users.
Illusion gave the impression of nourishment before and that’s where my body naively thinks it needs to go.
I. Am. Hungry.
Desperation led me to bang on the door of my user.
The street commandment I didn’t follow-
The impulse to self-medicate and numb now abounds in my field.
I relapse and I put whatever clothes on.
No coat.
No scarf.
I run to you in the rain, in the cold.
I was focused on getting the hit.
Will you let me in your house?
With egoic entitlement, I scream and demand,
You’re my dealer too!
I need you too!
I need you to drip all over me the magical drug of illusion.
I hit a block of solid knowing that I just can’t ignore anymore.
I want it even though it’s not true.
I know what I really want is nature (God), to be around nature (God).
What I want is that connection to Her. This I know.
I know my building burned down.
I know I stopped selling to you.
You grew cold towards me.
You found a new dealer.
It is a divine intervention that you do not open your door.
That you will not let me inside.
That you will not see me.
It hurts to re-live the pain of what I already know.
To keep coming back to the thing that perpetuates the same story of not being seen.
That you only see yourself and you only see what you’ve projected on to me.
Emotions are high.
Thunder, lightning, hard rain.
The kind that soaks all your clothes.
The kind that makes you look up to the sky and listen.
I stand there for days frozen.
Days.
And your door, you do not open.
Cold and bitter.
No warmth and no honey.
With ice-cold brutally sober eyes, I see.
I feel this as I stand in front of your outer gates.
Frozen.
Questioning whether I should wait or if I should walk away. Completely unable to move my body.
Shock in my system.
Many thoughts crossing, but my body remains frozen.
I gather enough spark from inside to reach over and push the gate open.
The cold of the metal bars penetrates my skin.
I hold still for a moment.
I notice how the cold reminds my body that it’s alive and that I need to keep my body alive. It can be dangerous if I stay this uncovered and naked.
My chest tightens as I allow the cold to enter me.
The cold whispers to me,
“Let’s get out of here, we’re not wanted here.”
The same way you taught me the beauty in numbness.
You too are also teaching me the beauty in the cold-hearted.
The sheer level of protection our coldness offers when in the face of great pain and betrayal.
Despite my preference for heat and passion, cold is what my heart feels towards you.
My pussy hardens with closed steel doors, cold.
Ice is so cold it will burn whoever (including me) does not come with reverence.
Sub-Zero Queen.
And she speaks.
Go elsewhere with your warmth honey bullshit.
Go somewhere else with your delicious addictive deceitful cake.
Fake shit!
For YOU, it is cold here.
Leave.
There is enough coldness to properly shield from invaders, squatters, and feigns.
But really what’s in here is paradise, an island.
What’s in here are the memories of moisture droplets that live in my blood from the trees of all my ancestors even in this brutal, cold winter.
Inside here is green, fertile, pure.
Rich.
My skin brown.
Like coffee, milk, and honey.
African, Taino, European blood coursing through my veins.
Red.
White.
Blue.
Black.
A colorful soul filled with wonder.
Diamond ocean waters surround me.
Passion AND heat.
Ignition for life itself.
And alas, the very thing I claim, is the very thing that is no longer with me in my body on a physical level.
Yes, energetically.
Yes, spiritually.
Physically, there is this harsh void and emptiness.
I don’t know what to do with the void and emptiness other than to yearn.
I crave Her.
In pure green fashion.
I would eat the grass if I could.
Lick the soil where the worms crawl, where the cows have shat long ago.
What I have now are the memories and facetime calls from my daughter who bounces joyously surrounded by Pacha Mama day and night.
I find my strength in allowing my daughter to have it as I continue to pave the way for her and for the generations to come.
The truth whispers and it screams, “this is the time, this is the hour.”
This IS the time.
This IS the hour.
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