I am a Precious Boy

I am a precious boy.

I am a precious latino.

I am a precious joto.

I am precious.

Sitting and writing about nothing and everything that I have become. Seeing the movie "Precious" was intense. Intense because the word itself is abstract yet, it is still able to pierce through all the precious moments in my life.

I don't quite know how to process the movie. But maybe that's it, I don't need to process it. What i need to do is imagine how one day I will be able to look at a movie and see my childhood. Precious, the character, is me. She is David Preciado being pushed onto the bed by his rapist father. But what does that really mean in the context of David is now 20 years old and the rape scene in the movie is a resemblance of what occurred twelve years ago? Beyond the mere fact that Precious and I experience molestation by our father, watching the scene meant the reasoning behind my non-existing stable relationship with a male figure.

I am twenty years old and I have yet to have had a "real" long term relationship with a man. Not that the opportunity has not presented itself, but I have always managed to manipulate my feelings into believing that it would not be worth it. Worth it because either i'm not ready, or he is just to BLAH. How do I learn to trust a man when the men in my life have either raped me? Died? or Left me?

Why do I hate men so much that I punish myself by only offering my body to them or playing the role of mutual attraction when I know it's only a matter of time before I shut the door? So many things to ponder and process and find answers to.

Answers that are contingent on the decolonization of my spirit, mind and body. Watching Precious was the answer because it made me remember that I am a precious boy. A nino cafecito who is in need of love that is foreign but necessary for his existence. Love that will validate the men i have and will encounter but most of all love that will validate my own male being.