La Llorona

I've heard the names you call me.

People think I'm crazy, loca. They tell their Babies to stay away, to behave or else La Llorona,the Weeping Woman will get you. Stay away from the Water after dark because La Llorona wanders the shores looking for a baby to steal.

They have never asked for my side of the story, only believe what they've heard. I've been the poster child of "what not to do", a scapegoat,and some may even say a martyr.

Let me tell my side. Give me the same sympathetic ear you gave him.

Allow your heart to open and feel what I feel.

Yes, I was once painfully beautiful,and tragically naive. I thought beauty was all I would ever need to get by.

To achieve all that I wanted I only had to smile.

That's how things were when I was a child.

Everywhere I went things were handed to me,because

I was as pretty as an Angel.

Flawless.

I admit I was picky in choosing a husband,how could I not be. What would they say if I married a man only for his compassion,his loyalty ,his heart?

How was LOVE to fit in the scheme of things?

I married a man so handsome that Angels sang each time he took a breath. Nothing else about him mattered. The Towns people would stop and stare when He and I would walk down the street.

We heard their whispers and their jealous curses.

Why do they hate what they can't have?

That was then and this is now.

How was I to know beauty fades?

That,like the saying goes beauty is only skin deep. He left me for someone far more beautiful than I. It was the status of beauty he was looking for and

not my heart,my loyalty or my compassion

and sadly not love.

The tales are true.

I did drown my children.

I stuffed down

the emotion,the want,the need,and the desire so deep down inside me,

I forgot their existence.

These children were my own. They were my past,my present,my future.

I drowned them in the abyss of not being good enough,talented enough,or smart enough.

When I would tell him about my three children, he would laugh and call me crazy,

"tu eres loca"

he'd say as he'd grab his coat and walk out the door to see her.

I knew I wasn't crazy.

My children were beautiful,graceful and filled with passion.

They were called

Hopes,Dreams and Wishes.

Yes,they were mine and mine only. I tried to share them with the man of beauty,but he couldn't understand them,perhaps they frightened him.

I don't think he ever had children of his own.

I don't mean to frighten your Babies,but when I see them stare longingly into the sea it breaks my heart.

I want to warn them and,point out to them that there in their own reflection lay their children.

I want to whisper in their little ears that beauty is only temporary and your children are yours forever.