Conquistadora

I

I’m a crude pirate full to the brim with passion
Enough for a tribe or a legion
For a life of plunder
Equipped with a sharp intellect
A temper of lightening and thunder

My compassion altogether wider
Feeling so wide like the world
Meet me on the street and I’ll fail to recognize you

Such a snob, a fraud, pretending and friendless
Rich yet penniless
I sow the life of independence
The sour taste of pettiness

Reap the fruits of emptiness and
Build a fire
Burn it all and throw it against the wall
Starting over

II

New name, new identity
Cut the strings that tie me down to anything
What is Benavides?
What are names synominous with forgotten Sephardic royalty?
What is Colorado?
And the reddest earth and juniper valleys that flow within me?

These emotions of nostalgia nauseate me
Throw it all down the communal garbage ravine
Let the gatherers take what they need and leave the rest to rust

I move on like a ghost
A shape-shifter who’s forgotten her art
I’m not human, nor really here

My heart is so full its bursting from wear
I vomit out old lovers and
Purge myself of all memories
Illusions and impurities of something unique or special

I’ve honored you all more than your worth
And now I’ve no more use of you
You all like spiritual leeches in my memory
A cancer of feeling I habitually feed
In the prison of nostalgia

I’m done with that
Like the shedding of a healthy uterus
Like a snake against the bark of a tree

Perhaps nostalgia is just a symptom of the disease
Not living fully, not living presently
If I die without any nostalgia
Then I would have lived purely

Nostalgia is the soul intuitively missing when we lived without
This bullshit of individual identity