Songs of Songs (MY UPCOMING BOOK)

some songs are better heard unsung

At fourteen, I stood in front of my parents trying to tell them about the sexual abuse I had experienced.

The words wouldn’t come out.

My throat tightened into something painful—vergüenza.
A silence so heavy it said more than I could.

I cried.
My mom cried.
My dad sat there, visibly breaking.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “You can tell us.”
But I couldn’t.

And before the conversation could even begin,
something else had already been understood.
Not what had happened,
but what it had done to me.

—

They had seen this before.
In themselves.
In the pauses.
In the things left unsaid.
In the way silence stretches when words are sparse.

And in that moment, without saying it,
I was telling them:

I’m like you now.
I carry it too.

—

I think of all the times the roles were reversed.

When I stood there just a second longer,
waiting...
hoping they would finally say
what I already knew they felt:

I love you.
I’m so proud of you.
Te amo muchísimo.

But the words never came.
Just an awkward silence,
a stare held a few seconds too long,
and finally,

“Pues, síguele echando ganas, mijo.”

—

Thirteen years later,
I’m still working to break this cycle.
Still unlearning a shame
that was never mine to carry.

That process led me here,
to this book.

Songs of Songs.

—

This book is my attempt to break that silence.

Before I could speak freely,
I had to find the words.

So I went looking for them
in music.

In the songs that already knew
what I couldn’t say.

Each piece in this collection begins there,
a song that held the feeling first,
and from it,
I built something of my own.

A song within a song.

—

Songs of Songs is a collection of poems, notes, and reflections,
each shaped by the music that helped me understand myself.

If you recognize this silence,
this shame,

I hope this work helps you begin
to loosen its grip.