Ambivalence was taking the power back, walking away from my parents
Without ever looking back, but then the guilt, like a leash, snapped me back.
Ambivalence was the guilt preventing me from moving on with my life
was the same guilt I was taught to have about myself, instead of loving myself.
Ambivalence was people calling me Juan, paco, chico, fag, spic before I was ready,
Mature, able to embrace it, empathy, that always existed.
If it could just crawl out of the trashcan it was forced into.
Empathy has no ambivalence, it became my only window.
Ambivalence is the why am I crying?
Why do I care that you don’t love me?
That you don’t like me. Why do I need
Your love, why am I bound to your acceptance?
Like a dog too loyal for his own good
Always going back out of habit.
Ambivalence is learning to have friends who treat you worse
Than your enemies who treat you better than your parents.
Leaving you desperate for friends who will only jump you for fun.
Wait, why did I have enemies stalking me in the hallways.
Ambivalence is my broken identity walking down every street in America
Without a home to call home, with hate staring out the windows.
Ambivalence is needing to compare myself to people who I know had it worse,
Comparing myself to people who I know didn’t escape,
Ambivalence is trading in my trauma for privilege,
my brown skin for flaking residues of whiteness
my history for assimilation of a past I never had,
reading hallmark cards, watching movies, seeing families
All giving me nostalgia for a life I could have lived.
Ambivalence is looking at myself in a mirror to see my past
But the only thing behind me is darkness, the only one holding my hand
Are ghosts of ideas that I cling to in hopes I might die with dignity.
Ambivalence is, how did this not break me?
Ambivalence is the hypocrisy I am crucified to
So quick to forget, shouting jump you fucking pussy
Jump or get the fuck out of the Marine Corps,
And I can see her standing on the roof of the barracks
And none of us had even deployed yet.
Ambivalence is never feeling home, yet finding home everywhere else
Everywhere else that I go, besides here, everywhere else that I go, besides here,