“One day I’ll be an expert lovemaker/in your bed, between the sheets.”

Scintilla Prompt #1 Who Are You?

I’m a girl named after a goddess, the goddess, the all-mother – of creation and destruction. Daughter of a tecato, Spanish for junkie, waiting for the powder coating his fingertips to work its way into my blood forty years later and leave my inner workings fried, frayed, failing. I’m a lover and a fighter, both, at the same time, stumbling out of a stranger’s arms with bruised thighs, bags under my eyes. I’m a poet, a would-be revolutionary aching for evolution, resolution, and I’m going to drag you out of hell kicking (and screaming) right along with me.

I’m a Mean Girl, Charlie Brown. Apt to call you out on your mistakes in the hopes that you don’t notice my own. I’m sassy, I’m spirited, I’m just looking for a man to shut me up for awhile because I’m so tired so tired of the sound of my own voice. I’m a wanderer looking for a way out of this mess, looking for streets off the grid, that don’t match up, that go nowhere in numerical order-disorder.

I’m a “fox terrier bitch ready to fight the whole world”, so you’d better rein me in. A Wise Latina with the best ass above 125th street. I’m a sensitive soul too afraid to let people know what they mean to me, because the minute you tell anyone anything, you start missing everybody (thanks, Holden).

A sucker for words and hidden glances. A scholar. A “Rocinante, corriendo desbocado”, getting skittish at every turn. Ready to outrun the powder, the marks slashing his skin and mine, ready to do my duty because I’ve got several-thousand-generations-of-defeat-dying-to-finally-fucking-win.

I’m a sniffling, snuffling, fucking mess writing to you with my mascara running down my face because it took three hours to get home from 59th street because someone saw something, someone said something, and it’s a rare cabbie willing to trek to The Bronx with a crying girl in his backseat. I’m a sourpuss, a sad sedate, because I needed someone to feed me a valium tonight just to keep me from running into walls for six hours straight.

But I’m here. Pushing at the gate. Waiting for the gunshot. After your own heart.

I’m Shakti Iris Castro. And I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.