why.

Its 1:15 a.m. and I find myself, again, restless. I don’t understand why I cannot go to sleep. It is all these thoughts that continue to plague me. but I honestly feel like if I am suffocating, suffocating at the fact that I have no where to turn. I don’t want to burden anyone with my melodrama, my internal thoughts. And my best friends – I have, I don’t know why, but pushed out. Why do I push out those who have offered to help me? I need to stop blaming myself, that is the problem. I need to come out a better person, a new person. I need to stop relying on people who are emotionally abusive. It all comes down to that, to the fact that I am unable and unwilling to recognize that I have never actually done something—but rather, I continuously allow myself to become a victim of something. I am trying to recognize what the core of that is – I am uncertain what it looks like.

Why is it that I am always doubting my self-worth? Why is that I always feel like I am not good enough?

Sure, I may feel this. But what am I doing to address this. Am I trying to find the drive of these feelings? Or am I trying to transform myself?  

warmth

Dark voices plague my head.

No they don’t tell me to do dangerous things.

Rather, they make me go crazy.

Not wild, but mad. Upset.

This reminds me of a darker period in my life.

I thought the devil was inside of me.

Controlling my life.

I was a devoted Catholic.

Loved God.

But I also made love to him.

I jerked off with the same hand

I took the eucharist.

I once wrote a poem about it, and presented in my Chicano Literaure class.

I thought I would be stoned. But I wasn’t.

They loved it.

Why I asked myself – would they love the idea of me making love to God?

The darkness never left, rather I hid it.

I’ve always been a very angry child.

I don’t know why or where it comes from. Perhaps the bullying in elementary school and middle school.

In high school. I always worried. I had meltdowns. Broke down. She held me tight. I felt comfortable.

Warmth. I miss it. I miss it.

Aug 21

Its 3 in the morning and I cannot stop thinking about him. This part of my growth and development. My fear, and insecurity—to let go.

This guy I met, and we hunt out for a while. He said something that kept me thinking about my own unwillingness to be intimate with another person. He said, he could not see himself bottoming until he saw himself ready to give himself to someone. Perhaps, I close up, and refuse to let anyone in, to violate my space for deeper reasons. One, I’ve only really bottomed for one person – but I loved him. Moreover, the first person that I bottomed for, it was against my own will.

There is a hurt and pain in my head – because I’ve never been able to call it rape. But I believe it’s a symptom of my own unwillingness to see myself a victim, to see myself actually raped. I let him. I was the one who was willingly there at his place. I said no the first two times, but the last time, the third time he asked me. I stayed silent. It wasn’t because I wanted to, but because I was scared. how would I get back home? What would I tell my mom. He broke me. He tore me. I still remember the pain. He was inside of me, against my own will. I told him to stop, but he insisted on another position. I snuck out of the house to go with him. He said we would go to starbucks and talk. I was upset. Scared. at myself.

And here I am. Unwilling to show love, to anyone else.

The first person inside of me raped me. The second one left me. I tense up. Memories roam, and I fall. I have not healed. I have not been able to forgive, ultimately myself. No. I didn’t let him go. No, it was not my fault.

I will always love him. But I got carried away. I let it all go.

I need to stop blaming myself for it all, and just take proactive steps to re-assemble.

There’s a history of rape in my family. my younger brother, the one who is also gay, was raped in a park by a man they never found. I knew something was wrong, I could feel it inside of me. I called home, but no one answered. I left in a hurry. I got home to an empty house. Everyone was at the police station.

He was silent. Worse than I had ever seen him.

We share a special bond, he does not even know it.

He was traumatized at my own coming out experience. He witnessed the emotional and mental abuse. Not only did he witness it, he also suffered it.

I need to heal then go back. I need to be emotionally strong. I need to be okay with these thoughts and feelings. I am in a vulnerable position right now. 

Aug 19

No one really knows that one of the main reasons why I decided to move to Chicago was to deal with a lot of the emotional and spiritual trauma I had internalized over the years. I am not trying to victimize myself – but I am a victim, a victim of a world that does not know how to appreciate my essence and my worth of life. It really started when I was young, and almost dying. Few know that I was babtized a month after birth because they were afraid I would die and go to hell. Only my mom and godmother were there. My dad was in the United States so he could not make it, my godfather has and will always be absent from my life. It is quite disappointing actually, having his often in my life yet always forgetting what I was to him. I don’t blame him, I blame these feckless expectations I had.

My mom has given me an unconditional type of love, only that she understands.  My mom has her own history of emotional abuse, conditioned by great grandmother. This is too difficult to write. The abuse, this family has seen. Never physical, always by fear. When will it end?

the dream.

This dream of mine continues to be replayed in my head. I am not sure why this specific dream out of the many I have had in the past few weeks, but it continues to haunt me spiritually and personally. What the dream was trying to do, is remind me of how vulnerable I am no matter what kind of façade I continue to proclaim. I think I found a correlation to the dream, and its significance. The night before I was listening to Keysha Cole “Enough of No Love.” I have not cried like this in a while, maybe the last time I did was on my way back from Cabo. I hated myself then, and I hate myself now. But again, this hate is a result of my unwillingness to be broken. I refuse to do so. I continue to think that my mother had something to do with this. With my emotional and psychological abuse. Why i am so tough on myself – but then, why I always make mistakes. It’s like I am an angry child, still full of rage inside. My mother never physically abused us, but she challenged us to be emotionally unavailable. The only time she ever said, “I Love You,” was before I boarded the plane to Chicago. I knew I had to leave to understand her love, rather to be okay with her love. I want to write to her, maybe I will. But later, not now.

For now, here is my dream.

His name is Anthony, and he was a middle school friend. I recently reconnected with him. But I don’t think he had any importance in the dream, I think he was a filler for someone else. He is married and I am good friends with his wife.

Anthony and I were in a relationship, and my family had moved into a new home. A larger home – maybe again, the relationship between my family, my queerness, our social status, etc.

But I was scorned by my mom and warned not to be intimate with this boy of mine. He tried holding my hand, and I pulled away. I don’t know what I was scared about. But fear was running through my body.

Yet, I noticed his resentment. His frustration, I was able to sense how upset he was with me.

Man I don’t understand why this dream was so vivid, and why I liked it so much. It sort of made hopeful, that I should trust in love. that I will find love. but it also made me realize how much more progress I need to make in order to be okay with that.

Back to the dream, at some point, he and I were in some store doing some shopping for this supposed party. He approached me and asked me about why I was so afraid of holding his hand.

This is the pat of me that misses that. The beautiful thing of being able to share with someone. I get tired of being alone. Not because I need a boyfriend, but because I get lost and crazy in my own thoughts. I have so much to say, yet no one to say it to.

Okay so in the dream, I confessed to him that I was scared that I was stuck in the middle of hurting him or disappointing my family. man I want to hold him right now. I just want to hold him in my arms.

We end back at the house, I am holding his hand. I am no longer afraid. I look at my grandma, she smiles at us. I smile back. I look at my dad, he is ecstatic. And my mother, nervous.

See, this is the issue that I am dealing with about negotiating my queerness in action at home. My family say they are okay with it, yet I am still closeted to the rest of my uncles. I mean I don’t care. But I do envision a big queer wedding. Ugh that’s another question, why do I want to replicate heteronormativity? I guess it just makes me so comfortable. Ugh I am a fucking contradiction. Seeking love yet deconstructing it.

stuck

Stuck in the middle of white suburbia in the Midwest. This has been an interesting experience. I am sitting at Bini Bakery, which is next to Red Mango and I see these families coming together and rejoicing with their presence. I am sure they are troubled by many problems, but they just seem so carefree. They talk about school, their relationships, the fun they are having. This is so surreal to me – because I have never lived this experience.

My family only ate out once, that was usually Sundays. And it was never at places where we could just come together and just do things like these.

My experience is raw, it still hurts.   

So I have a degree from one of the greatest institutions in the nation, but it did not prepare me to face the realities of who I am. It has helped me understand my place in society, but it did not prepare me to fully comprehend what it would be like to be a queer brown person with a degree in a world that continues to be so foreign to me. I understand that we are sort of creating these bridges between those who know, and those who do not know. I am aware that my community is emerging and it is progressively becoming something.

I am aware that we will be the ones altering this country. But why do I continue to feel so alone? I know I am physically alone – but I also know that there are so many more people in my life that are continuously helping me. There is a difference between never being alone, yet feeling alone.