Special Guest Blogger: Brazilian Goddess Pomba Gira

Sit down, darling. No, not there dolt, you’re sitting on my silk skirt, and this shade of crimson is far too expensive for your fat backside to rumple.
Honestly, the youth of today. You walk into my crossroads with your store-bought roses and menthol cigarettes and you expect the Queen to just drop everything?
My path is paved with the bones of men who thought no was a suggestion, but it has a certain charm because a woman has three choices of being a wife (boring), being a servant (tiring), or being a problem. I chose to be a catastrophic problem. I had hips that swung like a pendulum and a laugh that
could shatter a stained-glass window from three streets away. I lived in the taverns, the cabarets, and the places where the respectable people went when they wanted to feel alive and then spent the next morning praying for forgiveness.
Being a Pomba Gira isn’t just about wearing red and looking fabulous, it’s about the Crossroads. Every time you’re stuck, between a bad job and a worse one or between a boring husband and a thrilling mistake or even between life and death, that’s my office.
I’m the Queen of the Seven Crossroads. I’m the one who stands at the gate of the cemetery, laughing at the people who thought they could take their money with them. You can’t.
When you call on me, you’re not calling a fairy godmother. I’m not going to turn a pumpkin into a carriage, i’m more likely to set the pumpkin on fire and tell you to walk.
You come to me with your little red candles, crying about some boy named Kevin who hasn't liked your photo on the internet. Seriously? You want the Queen of the Night, the Lady of the Labyrinth, the Woman of Seven Marriages, to intervene in a digital spat?
I remember when people asked for real things like protecting your house from the police or making sure your husband’s mistress loses her hair but now, I spend half my time looking at your tweets and blog posts and think I’m not a feckin' delivery service, I’m a spirit. If you want a miracle, go talk to
a saint, they’re much more patient, though their parties are terrible. No smoking, no drinking, and everyone wears white. Dreadful.
People find my laugh, the gargalhada, quite scary as they think it’s the sound of evil. Idiots, It’s the sound of a woman who has seen the beginning and the end and realized that most of what you worry about is utter horseshit.
I'm the perfume you smell in an empty room and the red rose that blooms in the middle of a graveyard, I’ve seen empires fall because someone wanted a kiss they weren't supposed to have and seen men ruin their lives for a glimpse of a red pair of knickers and I sit at my crossroads, sipping my cider, and I laugh.
But don’t get it twisted. I’m not your bestie, I’m a Queen. If you bring me cheap wine, I’ll make sure your next haircut is a disaster. If you lie to me, I’ll make sure you trip every time you try to look cool. I demand respect so take your roses, leave the cigarette pack (the full one, don't be cheap) and remember, life is too short to drink bad wine or smoke those French ciggies which smell like burnt tyres.