La Llorona of St. Mary’s Street

I remember five in the morning

in the deserted streets of Boston,

dead of fucking winter. 

When freezing tears stung my face

and my breath crystalized in front of me. 

I remember how I had to clutch at something

that I thought could kill 

to feel safe. 

My shears, my sharpened stick, my fabric scissors.

I had been pushed over the border of sanity

and floating, I haunted the streets 

of peaceful Fenway.

I remember most of the time

just sitting at the train station and crying. 

Just crying and crying. 

La Llorona of Saint Mary’s Street 

Howling in pain 

and hallucinating out of fear.

And the worst part was feeling that

I should be ashamed. 

That “it hadn’t been that bad”.

But I know that it was the kind of abuse

that you can’t be the same after, 

no matter how hard you try to suffocate it. 

And so I left. 

I left my quiet American purgatory. 

Where in the dead quiet of a cold night 

all you could hear were my sobs.