I have been doing battle for and against others for so long, that I have been too weary to dedicate time and energy to that which is the core of who I am: A storyteller. I have been so preoccupied with the survival of self and others, that I may have hovered around a particular opportunity for too long without attempting a landing. But if you know me, truly know me, at all, you will know that I would rather put forth the significant energy required to try, knowing it may well be for nought, than live with never trying at all because it ‘might’ be too late, because I have fear and still suffer from imposter syndrome and engage in ridiculous self-talk like ‘why-would-they-consider-someone-like-me,’ and other bullshit. And as the next piece of corrugated cardboard, stop: revise: and as the next piece of re-bar enforced ‘culturally-appropriate’ cardboard and its inhabitants, threaten to box me further into the harm-laden world and systems I abhor, the ones which are sucking the health from my body and the soul from my being, the ones driving me further into a pit of financial instability, I look at my well-tattooed left arm, and remember, I am the girl who makes pigs fly! Lift-off must occur soonest, for detonation of the box has proven futile and I am out of explosives and expletives alike. I will beseech them, the unboxed, to please give me a shot, for I can do this. I want it more than most things. It is what I have been looking for without knowing exactly how and where I would find it, and without knowing them, but knowing them, because I found me a long time ago, and I know me. The box never has. The box never will. The box is not programmed to know, love, learn, nurture. The box is programmed to destroy. I am programmed to thwart its efforts.
~Marcela.