I wasn't born into greatness

My roots lie deep everywhere but here

There were skins to be shed

Like the snake that slithered through the stories of the Chicana

That I have mostly no connection to

Similar we are

For I put up a fight

Though sometimes I'd rather just give up

Something inside me hoped for someone else to fight for me

Yet it was me who was to do it

But like that snake

The skins must fall

And from them I will learn

So fast I lost that skin of childhood

The innocent skin that for long I hoped to keep

Yet so fast I had to lose it

They say alcohol is a curse

And cursed I was

To it I lost much more then just the sense of hope

It was there that I lost my parents

Time to shed another skin

Time to leave on the skin that showed that I could take it

Lost I was but I had to put up a fight I wasn’t going down easily

Into a new home I was placed

The skin of the fighter was slowly peeling away

For fear was what took over

Bounced out of there so fast

And so there the skin rolls

To the ground it goes

Slightly I stared down at it

Several of them lay there

And from them I was to teach myself

I was not to let myself be taken over by what made them shed

I asked myself

Do I have strength to fight some more?

I really had no idea

One more was shed

And that skin lay curled more oddly

Like it was telling me something

Mocking me some how

That I put up more then what I should have had to

That's my life of the snake

Still I miss that skin of innocence

Yet I was left a fighter

The skins, they lie in the corner

Yet they are not forgotten

The more I live

The more I know they're there

They are memories

The triumph over darkness

The pain I endured

And it is now the blood of a fighter that runs through these veins

Roots from here and there

A skin shedder…

But it's ok

Because it has made me who I am today

And for that I embrace it fully

One more skin of acceptance shed

I am near completeness.