Anera

Daughter of defiance, voice of the unnamed—this is the body that holds Cruz Anera de la Verdad.

I didn’t slip quietly from girlhood, I ruptured out of it. Nineteen years alive, with twenty already breathing down my neck come November. I’ve carried the weight of womanhood longer than time was willing to admit. I was not eased into it—I was forged, pulled forward by fire, never asking, never granted permission.

Love does not walk straight in me. It spills, it fractures, it clings to man, to woman, to every name and body in between. My heart is an untethered thing, a river that refuses a single shore. I do not apologize for the way it floods.

This space is no different. It inhales and exhales as I do—ragged, unfiltered, rimmed with edges that cut. What you’ll find here are shards: vents, blood, fragments of rage and tenderness. Not lust, but truth, always truth, bared raw against the bone.

And if my words wound, speak. I will not turn from it. But if the force of who I am swells too large for the room you’ve built, then let go. My voice will remain, whether heard or left behind.