Mama Marina

featuring Bittersweet Cinema (performed by -A-)

It’s almost 2026, and the time has come to drop my first poetry reading—in character. It requires no introduction, but here are some anyway.

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Memoirist Anne Lamott famously said, “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

When I embarked on writing my memoir, I knew it would be a delicate affair. Without the resources of Taylor Swift behind me (though it’s still on my Wi$h Li$t), my memoir—by necessity—needed to be the most slanted straight line.

And, NGL, this pissed me the hell off.

I first announced I would write memoir at the tender age of eight. My mother had just survived being kidnapped at gunpoint by two escaped convicts, and it was then I decided my life was already interesting enough to warrant a novel-length bestseller. In the thirty years since, I have declared this to be so with friends, family, one-night stands, future exes, and random strangers I met in bars and quickly forgot.

This did not, however, inspire the queen-level treatment one would need to be remotely sue-proof while writing said memoir. And for that I say, thank you very much for making the story more interesting. And also, bah humbug for making it harder to write.

A few months ago, I was meditating on this unfortunate conundrum, when I said aloud:

“But surely, NoNameWhoDefinitelyKNEW realizes they’d left me holding nothing but a villain edit. Why wouldn’t they want to behave better?”

That’s when -A- let out a heavy sigh and in her fuck-your-feelings voice broke the news. “They never thought you would actually write anything, dumb*ss.”

What a b*tch, but she’s usually right. I just wish she’d told me years ago because nothing lights a fire under my ass quite like being underestimated.

I see how it is,

Ariella

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We weren’t a family of stories told lightly and often. With my mother, a story missed was a story lost. I didn’t recognize this for anything other than normal until I started dating boys whose families laughed till they cried telling old stories over dinner plates. 

I tried that once as an adult and made my mother cry by choosing the story of the last time she spanked me. To be fair, I was laughing when it happened just as much as I was retelling the story.

But I’m a mom now. And I get it. 

We all fear our worst moments becoming our kids’ most vivid memories. And rightfully so–because it’s science.

But my mother was much more than her worst moments. She was a vocal advocate for others in her role as a social worker, and a measured stoic when talking of her own pain. She hated nothing more than being pitied or painted a victim.

The idea to write my memoir as fantasy came about while doing Jungian shadow work to process religious and sexual trauma. The shadow part I later turned into the character -A- quickly became my favorite. With her “fuck-all-the-way-off” attitude, low tolerance for others’ bullshit, and unapologetically dark humor, she was the embodiment of my mother–and a near stranger to the version of me who entered 2025. She only knew anger to be quiet and tempered, taking root as resentment.

Much like my mother, people who knew my story would call me “strong.” But I was not the type of “strong” people meant when referring to my mother. My mother’s admirers were impressed she rose to fight another day. Mine were surprised I could get out of bed at all. Though hardly my own admirer, I was as surprised as anyone when I did; and I also hid the days I didn’t bother to try. 

Touché. And a bit harsh for a teenager who still needed a permission slip and adult supervision to attend The Passion of the Christ at midnight. But what do I know?

In my mother’s final years fighting cancer, I bore witness to her season of shadows as she took on the qualities she’d rejected in me. Through trauma healing and my training as a therapist, I learned how to make sense of our dynamic. While engaged with shadow work and the memoir approach that arose from it, I grew to understand her as a person. And ultimately, as is the goal of shadow work, I became deeply acquainted with myself.

Best of all, I began to embrace the seeming contradiction that is duality. To be soft yet brazen, vulnerable but resilient, humble and powerful, and empathetic while pursuing justice.

Earlier this year, I went to war with the story I needed to tell, counting up the number of people who wouldn’t want me to tell it. The story won by teaching me these lessons.

Rage can be righteous, and rebuke can be merciful. 

Truth only wounds when the altar of forgiveness is barricaded by shame.

None of us put it there. 

All of us are capable of removing our own. 

None of us can remove anyone else’s.

Truth spoken in love is an invitation to grow, to change, to repair, to restore.

Most who would want me silent have been directly invited to restorative conversation. That door is open for anyone, and I welcome it. Both for the healing. And the plot.

In Christ’s love and (finally) power,

Angie

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Without further ado, here is -A- performing Bittersweet Cinema.

@angiebrogan

I’ve been writing memoir I must tell slant—so I’m doing it in metaphor, allegory, and poetry. Best of all, sometimes I do it in character. This is Bittersweet Cinema, my first poetry reading exploring rage, shadow work, and healing. The full essay + context is on my blog. Link in bio. #healingjourney #shadowwork #poetry #memoir #divinefeminine

♬ Lucifer’s Waltz – Secession Studios

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EPILOGUE:

🐝🐝 Blessed Bees, 🐝🐝

I dedicate Bittersweet Cinema to the haters who track down our content without engaging. We 👀 you. Feel free to 👊 that follow button anytime. 😉

In the words of Carly Simon, “You’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you.” 

Well, you’d be right. You are also wrong. 

All of it is about all of you. 

Some of it is very much about one of you. 

And I’ve been dying to burst your 🫧… none of this is about any of you.

Sorry, not sorry,

-A-

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