Dear Aunty,
How are you doing? Hope things are well where you are. I hear it looks just like San Francisco in the clouds.
It's been a year and a half since I saw you last, or heard your voice, or met you for lunch, where have all the years gone.
Over two years ago now, at your most vulnerable, I remember you pulled me aside and thanked me for giving you the youth you never had, for being there for you, for being one of your best friends. That has touched me to this day, and I carry it with me always.
Now it is my turn to thank you.
Thank you, for always being there, even when I felt most alone, I always knew in the back of my mind that you were with me.
Thank you for all the fun times we spent together, up until sunrise, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and talking about the depths of our souls, always talking, and laughing.
Thank you for telling me it was okay to be myself, when everyone else tried to crush me, you held me up and shouted 'fuck you!' in main street with me!
Thank you for being my mother, in more ways than just one, you nurtured me spiritually, mentally and phsically.
Thank you for your words, your poetry inspired me to write some of my most beautiful work.
Thank you for dancing, Danza Del Sur is still going strong ya know, they're all still together, and they dance with joy in their hearts, the same joy you gave them in teaching them, that same joy you radiated to all who saw you on the stage.
Thank you for taking me out with you, for those great nights we spent dancing on tables and downing shots, fighting off the men!
Thank you for being beautiful, your beauty is still burned into my mind, the face I shall surely never forget is yours, those eyes whos kindness and fire incited me to revolution!
Thank you for standing by me in everything I did, when no one else believed in me, you did with all of your heart, you stood in silence with me in casemates and handed out fliers to the ingnorant public.
Thank you, for letting me know you, I have known you longer than any friend I shall ever have, and deeper than any. Yours is the first heart I saw exposed, the first raw love I ever felt, untainted by self editing and without a thought of what you 'had' to say.
You always said I was like your own son, the only difference is that you didn't give birth to me. Well i want you to know that you did give birth to be, you pulled me out of my shell of self hate, and dragged me out of my darkness kicking and screaming, wincing at the light. You gave me the life I have now, the confidence I enjoy now, the love I can now give to others, the love I have for myself, the smile on my face is all because of you, you gave me the most precious gift anyone could ever have given me.
You have taught me how to look adversity in the eye and scream 'I shall not be conquered by you!'
You taught me how to dream a dream, how to leave my body at night and visit the stars.
You taught me how to appreciate my parents, for their flaw was only that they are human, and mine was that I was to consumed by my own destruction.
From what I hear you went in peace, breathing softly, with your arms tucked under the pillow, what were you dreaming of? You were dancing, that's it, dancing, like the woman in your poem 'despierta'. Dancing in the clouds, the echoes of the earthly voices growing faint as you float away.
I remember you told me, that sometimes when you were hanging out the washing from your 12th floor window, you had considered jumping, not to commit suicide, but to fly, you had a dream, to fly through the air without wings.
Now you are free, you're free from these shackles of flesh and bone, fly, goddammit, fly! fly to your hearts content, visit the heavens, watch me while I sleep, kiss my brow goodnight.
I won't pretend I don't miss you, because I do with every cell in my being, wishing you were here has consumed me for months.
The blackness into which i stare at times bares my despair at the thought of never seeing you again, the rose from which I grew.
Thank you, eternally,
Your son
Kyle
"Yo Sueño Flamenco, Yo Sueño Distinto, Yo Lo Llevo Adentro, Porque Asi Lo E Vivido"
