Labyrinth Fire is about the quiet terror of staying too long in something that kills you slowly.

It’s about the moment you choose yourself. The moment you walk away, even if you’re still burning.

This poem was born from the wreckage of a toxic love.

For anyone who’s ever had to save themselves: this is for you 🧡

When you’re living in a labyrinth,
Death tastes sharp like mint.
You welcome the dark with open eyes,
Singing blind beneath the skies,
Letting your soul in silence drift,
Untethered by a mortal lift.

I’m not afraid to meet the end,
Though some think I just pretend.
They say I jest, or lie, or play
Unknowing hearts led astray.
But life itself, though long and bright,
Feels dulled beneath the absent light.

How do you live without a flame?
How does a soul survive no name?
That hollow ache will take its toll,
An echo gnawing through the soul.

And though I breathe with no desire
To end it all, to quench the fire,
I swear to you, I’ve known the blaze,
That fierce, unspoken, deadly haze.

Let lie the ones who rot in waste,
Who steals your grace without a trace.
They’ll drag you down, demand you stay
While feeding on your light each day.

Leave a comment

Arthur’s departure was foreseen and happened on a beautiful Saturday morning.
Whenever I dream of a tornado, I find myself alone, the vortex of a silent harbinger of change. A week before he passed, this dream’s tornado was the largest and darkest I had ever seen. The winds began to shift, growing heavy and unnervingly deliberate, as though the very fabric of the air had turned against itself. I looked out to my right, and beyond the limits of my perception, an F5 tornado loomed, vast and overwhelming. Its presence consumed the horizon, and the first thought that flooded my mind was Arthur. The winds were so intense I couldn’t move. The pull of the storm mirrored my dread, my instinct to act. When the winds weakened just enough, I ran to the three-story house where I had left him. I cannot recall how many times I called for him, my voice echoing through empty halls, but he was never found.

Subscribe now

Share

That feeling, the suffocating panic from my dream, clung to me as I went to check on him in reality. And there he lay, still and serene, moments from his final breath. In that instant, my heart shattered. His eyes were wide open, filled with an eerie stillness, as if he had glimpsed something beyond this world. They held the weight of knowing, reflecting the quiet acceptance of what was coming, an expression I had seen before in those who had passed, a gaze that reached beyond the present into the unknown.

Sorrow and solace tangled together like two opposing forces colliding in my chest. Endings and beginnings, polar extremes erupted within me, an emotional supernova that felt as though it might rip my soul apart. The only outlet that didn’t destroy everything in my path was to sob uncontrollably, to let the flood spill out of me. Suffering loss is universal; life is suffering, after all. But this loss is scarring, not just a mark but an open wound that trembles with every memory. Loss can shake your soul like a tremor in the ground.

Dolores and Shadow, his once sweet companions, came to my mind, and I hope they are with him now wherever his journey has taken him. His presence lingers, sometimes as a soft echo in my ears, other times as a glimpse in the periphery of my vision. His endearing and joyous spirit has left an indelible mark, transforming into a beautiful memory that gracefully lingers in the fabric of my being.

My beloved Arturo.

It took over six months for me to be myself again. Before he passed away, I had already found out I couldn’t have children, and I was carrying a quiet sadness. I had finally found a truly good partner who loves me and whom I love, and realizing that I wouldn’t be able to have children with him was a private ache. Losing Arthur at the same time felt like too much.

It didn’t feel like heartbreak. It felt like extinction, like the end of a season so long that I had forgotten the feeling of warmth. I spent eight years in a relationship that eventually unraveled from the inside out. The last three were heavy with emotional damage, cracks too deep to ignore, betrayals too quiet to name. When it ended, it wasn’t sudden. It was the result of years of erosion. And even then, the end wasn’t really the end. What followed was grief, therapy, silence, and the long, slow re-entry into myself.

Almost ten years. That’s how long it took, being in it, coming undone, and trying to live again without the weight of someone else’s version of me. And when it was over, truly over, it was marked by more than just a breakup. It came with the death of my dog, my companion, through all of it. His passing felt like the final collapse, the last thread cut. I didn’t just lose him, I lost who I was when he was with me.

It felt like Yosemite. A canyon carved by time and sorrow. It was as tall and narrow as a redwood tree falling in slow motion, echoing down its hollow trunk until all that remained was dust. Not devastation, just stillness.

What came after wasn’t pain. It was a different kind of silence. A sacred one. A silence that felt like truth: nothing left to hold, no more illusions to keep warm.
And still, I remained. The version of me I had buried under years of compromise, fear, and pretending. She didn’t come back all at once. But she was still there, waiting beneath the collapse.

Leave a comment

💛 If my words have ever made you feel seen, grounded, or inspired, you can support my work with a small gift of gratitude. I write everything here freely—except my novel, which I’ll be publishing soon.

Donate: 👉 buymeacoffee.com/mabelcurativa

In a city as culturally rich as Los Angeles, the slow removal of identity in public spaces, especially in something as seemingly trivial as a store’s music playlist, is more than a design choice. It’s a quiet cultural shift with loud consequences. I explore how the loss of culturally specific music in supermarkets and small businesses reflects a broader trend of cultural flattening, one that sacrifices authenticity for mass appeal. The music may change, but what’s really disappearing is the soul of the space and with it, the comfort, memory, and meaning that music brings to our everyday lives.

Southern California is a mosaic of global cultures, and a city like Los Angeles is where you can taste the world within a few blocks. Step into an Asian market and hear the warm hum of pop or traditional tunes; it’s not just background noise, it’s cultural essence. It’s humanity vibrating through the aisles, sung in unfamiliar words but familiar feelings. Visit MOULIN in Newport Beach, a charming French café, and you’re greeted with actual French employees, buttery pastries, and yes, music that gently whisks you to a lavender field in Provence. It’s not performative; it’s immersive. And that makes all the difference.

Go to Dick Church’s in Costa Mesa and you’ll find something similar. The music is classic American, a little country, maybe some jazz, that sets the tone for a hearty homestyle breakfast. The kind that makes you nostalgic for Aunt Meg from Twister, frying steak and eggs in a farmhouse kitchen. (R.I.P. Bill Paxton and Philip Seymour Hoffman, you are missed.)

In an Indian restaurant, hearing classical ragas or Bollywood hits means the garlic naan will definitely be fire. At Father Nature in Pasadena, where I grab a lavash wrap, the Mediterranean soundtrack adds a layer of beauty that spans from Armenia to France. Culture, especially around food, finds its greatest companion in music.

And not all of us have the luxury to travel the world. So when we enter a restaurant or shop owned by someone from another country, the music they play becomes a window, a fleeting but powerful glimpse into another way of life. No passport required. You don’t need to understand the lyrics to understand the soul.

But lately, something’s been happening. Slowly, quietly, the soul is being silenced.

Corporate stores are starting to strip the cultural DNA from these spaces. Packaging changes. Foreign languages are replaced by English. And most heartbreaking of all, the music changes. Take Vallarta, my beloved local Mexican supermarket. It used to feel like walking into the warmth of an abuela’s hug: familiar music, familiar smells, and the sounds of home. Now? It’s lost in the fog of corporate rebranding. More organized? Sure. Efficient? Fine. But sterile. Generic. And tragically, silent in the ways that matter.

I get it, they want to expand. Compete with Costco, Amazon, and Stater Bros. But in doing so, they’re losing what made them special in the first place: identity. The soul of a store is in its sensory details. The way it smells, the way it sounds, the people behind the counter who smile because you speak the same language, not just literally, but culturally.

Food without culture is just calories. And music without meaning is just noise. So why erase that for the sake of “mainstream appeal”? Why assume that comfort only comes from conformity?

Music carries memory. In every culture, across every continent, food and music are paired like old friends. In America, we do it too. Whether it’s a Fourth of July BBQ, Christmas dinner, or Sunday brunch, music completes the mood. And I’ll admit, though I’m not religious and personally can’t stand most Christmas music, there’s something about Carrie Underwood’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” that softens me up during the holidays. (Pro tip: the best track is “Let There Be Peace.”)

America was built by immigrants, people who brought their languages, recipes, music, and stories. And yet, the dominant narrative tells us to blend in, speak English, and let go of the "foreign" in favor of the familiar. But what is America if not a collection of the world’s best parts stitched together in glorious contradiction?

Yes, I’m ranting about a grocery store playlist. But don’t dismiss it. It’s never just the music. These subtle erasures are the beginning of full-blown homogenization. It’s the cultural equivalent of painting over a mural with beige.

I’m not uncomfortable in other people’s spaces. I don’t mind being the only Mexican in the room. I love hearing languages I don’t understand. I trust restaurants where the food matches the faces in the kitchen, where the music feels like a hometown I’ve never visited but instantly recognize.

So here’s what I really want to say:

Dear Corporate America,

Please, with all due respect, take your bland, beige playlists and kindly shove them back into your focus group folders. Bring back the Rancheras. Bring back the Románticos. Bring back the sabor.

Because some of us still find joy in the music of our mothers. Some of us remember where we come from. And some of us, a lot of us, aren’t afraid to celebrate it out loud.

Leave a comment

💛 If my words have ever made you feel seen, grounded, or inspired, you can support my work with a small gift of gratitude. I write everything here freely.

Donate: 👉 buymeacoffee.com/mabelcurativa

Who I am:

Connected to nature.

First-generation Mexican American.

Defiant since birth.

Who I was:

Struggled to believe people deserved to exist.

Angry

Depressed

Suicidal

Addicted to food

Who I want to become:

A better version of myself every day.

Leave a comment

*Photo above was taken by me in Hawaii, January 2024

Subscribe now