This is the kind of personal essay that earns its tenderness. It moves through identity, craft, shame, and rediscovery without getting sentimental or self-protective, and the voice stays sharp the whole way. The Monica thread is perfect, loving, funny, and quietly fierce, and the poem lands like proof, not decoration. By the end, the “chancla” punchline doesn’t cheapen it, it seals it with warmth and lived truth.