Puta. Not a curse, but a crown of broken bottles and bruised roses. She wears it like a war song, hips swaying to a rhythm that cracks the pavement.
Not gently. Not with coffee steam or birdsong. She wakes me like a car crash in slow motion, like the smell of burning sugar and bad decisions, like a text sent at 4 a.m. that you can’t unsend but can’t stop reading. Pendeja Puta Me Despierta
And for the first time all week, I laugh— the ugly, real laugh of someone who remembers that to be awake is to be a little bit damned, and a little bit free. Puta. Not a curse