Llorona *

*Inspired by an old Mexican legend

tonight the river is calling me

to talk like two sisters

both of us suffering

from the same ache

when the knife points at

the most vital organ

and the wild woman suffocates

then madness is salvation

but I defeated my shadow

sister,

it is time you wiped away your bloody tears

and pulled yourself together

you who ripped the three golden apples

from your womb with bare hands

because they were conceived by foreign seed

and no one pulled you out of the puddle of blood

where you were drowning in an agony

unknown even to the Mother of God

because a foreigner had inseminated you

you who plunged the knife into your own chest

and gave your heart a reason to bleed

you should have brought up your children yourself

but you drowned them instead

so they wouldn’t join you in your grief

then you hid in madness

and embraced the river

sister, from whom everyone runs away

you chose the status of witch and made

a legend of yourself

to scare children and young girls

with the barren life of disobedience

and now you’re lying on the riverbed

cursed to search for your children forever.

because this crime is unforgivable -

the woman’s second sin

I heard your cries and I loved you

because your tears were true-born

it is time for you to stand up

and leave the womb of the earth

pick up one by one your spiritual bones

buried in the wood

time to leave the shelter of madness

and accept you’re a murderess

and that one can live nonetheless

 woman is like the grass

always stands up no matter how trampled

you - a female Christ

took upon yourself the crimes of all future women

now we are clean

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Edward Phillips