Sister healer,
I have entered your house just six years after your birth and I am blessed for it.
Hermana Curandera,
Tus manos estan cubrieto en sangre,
Ya se que el hombre vino y te corto, pero necesito que tu me lo cuentes.
Sister healer,
My heart is racing, I want the nerves to stop but everytime they do it’s only because he has come with the touch that paralyzes me.
Hermana Curandera,
Me duele verte en los ojos,
Se que tienes un secreto pero no se como liberarte.
Sister Healer,
Listen to my screams! I need you to save me! Witness when you walked in and the man we called father was showing me my death.
Hermana Curandera,
Mis manos tambien sangran como las tuyas, necesitamos las llerbas de nuestra madre. Donde esta nuestra mami?
Sister Healer,
My life since the age of 8 is no longer my own but his. This body, my thoughts, my words have been enslaved. Won’t you free me?
Hermana Curandera,
As estado llorando por toda tu vida. Necesito tu fuerza para sobrevivir, ensename como continuar de respirar cuando el mundo me a sofocado.
Sister Healer,
My throat keeps itching, and the nightmares that I had when I was 8 want to escape my mouth. My eyes can’t stop bleeding and my knife can’t stop cutting.
Hermana Curandera,
Hoy es el Dia. Hoy es el dia que as compartido tu fuerza con migo y as liberado mi cuerpo, mente y palabras.
Sister Healer,
I, Love, You.
He raped me.
I, Love, You.
He raped you too.
Hermana Curandera,
Yo, Te, Amo.
Perdon.
Yo, Te, Amo.
Gracias.
Sister Healer,
Hermana Curandera,
You are the backbone to my existence. Mi voz cuando no puedo hablar. The love when I am feeling un-loved. La llerbas cuando mis manos sangran. I spoke the words but you taught them to me…
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
I exist
I wanted to close my eyes. Experiment with the different voices inside my head to formulate the truth of my power. How to transform signs of entrapment to signs of liberation? To close my eyes and no longer see the darkness as malice but as my weapon against the gatekeepers and the power mongers. In order to de-self-actualize, my imaginary has to become my truth and my love the backbone to my existence.
Last night I read my evaluations from my fellow R.A staff members.
So much emotion that I felt once I finished reading the evaluations. How could they? Why would they? How dare they? And of course… How expected! How expected for these heterosexual, mostly white idiotic people to evaluate me with such intimidation because of my identity. I am not approachable? Why? Because I scare you? Because you have never had to deal with a loud queer chicano before? Because approaching me would force you to validate my existence?
I come with a lot of baggage, truth and love. I don’t expect anything from you. I only expect that MY determination to physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually survive will never be silenced by YOUR determination to cut my throat.
Last night I read my evaluations from my fellow R.A staff members.
So much emotion that I felt once I finished reading the evaluations. How could they? Why would they? How dare they? And of course… How expected! How expected for these heterosexual, mostly white idiotic people to evaluate me with such intimidation because of my identity. I am not approachable? Why? Because I scare you? Because you have never had to deal with a loud queer chicano before? Because approaching me would force you to validate my existence?
I come with a lot of baggage, truth and love. I don’t expect anything from you. I only expect that MY determination to physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually survive will never be silenced by YOUR determination to cut my throat.
Living in the Imaginary
Living in the imaginary. As a kid and now as an adult, my reality has manifested into my imaginary. Living in the space between the world that exists when I close my eyes and when my eyes open, I find the four-fold way oxygen that is needed to survive in the imaginary. Breathing in the dichotomous worlds of closed and opened, my survival is dependent on the interface, imaginary, to legitimize my existence as a writer, poet, chicano, and queer. The imaginary oxygen is what fuels my fingers to type and sets free my testimonies to allow new ones to formulate. As bell hooks wrote in her essay Women Who Write Too Much, “I feel an urgent need to write ideas down on paper to make room for new ideas to arrive, keep my mind from becoming too crowded.” To liberate is to make the closed conversations the open and the open conversations insightful understandings of the human psyche−my own psyche.
It is difficult to write. It is difficult to travel between worlds and not feel as though the instability will be my defeat.
[for] Chicanos Who Write Too Much:
Continue to write,
Continue to travel between worlds,
Continue to be defeated.
My survival is dependent on the ability to write,
To bridge between the closed and the opened,
To validate my experiences,
But most of all to remember that I exist.
Chicanito at 8 Years old with a flowery journal don’t be ashamed.
The words you wrote, spoke truth to your exploited and abused sexual discourse.
Spoke to your fragile body but wise mind.
Chicanito at 11 years old with a purple-built-in-light journal don’t be ashamed.
The words you wrote, spoke truth to your deathly vision and twisted sexual discourse.
Spoke to your broken heart but queer becoming.
Chicanito at 15 years old with virus-infected journal don’t be ashamed.
The words you wrote, spoke truth to your fatherly and traumatic sexual discourse.
Spoke to your fragmented life but assurance that you exist[ed].
Chicano at 20 years old with a dusty-mac journal don’t be ashamed.
The words you wrote, spoke truth to your decolonizing sexual discourse.
Spoke to your insecurities of writing but your willingness to never stop.
It is difficult to write. It is difficult to travel between worlds and not feel as though the instability will be my defeat.
[for] Chicanos Who Write Too Much:
Continue to write,
Continue to travel between worlds,
Continue to be defeated.
My survival is dependent on the ability to write,
To bridge between the closed and the opened,
To validate my experiences,
But most of all to remember that I exist.
Chicanito at 8 Years old with a flowery journal don’t be ashamed.
The words you wrote, spoke truth to your exploited and abused sexual discourse.
Spoke to your fragile body but wise mind.
Chicanito at 11 years old with a purple-built-in-light journal don’t be ashamed.
The words you wrote, spoke truth to your deathly vision and twisted sexual discourse.
Spoke to your broken heart but queer becoming.
Chicanito at 15 years old with virus-infected journal don’t be ashamed.
The words you wrote, spoke truth to your fatherly and traumatic sexual discourse.
Spoke to your fragmented life but assurance that you exist[ed].
Chicano at 20 years old with a dusty-mac journal don’t be ashamed.
The words you wrote, spoke truth to your decolonizing sexual discourse.
Spoke to your insecurities of writing but your willingness to never stop.
Sleep Paralysis
Sleep paralysis. I am sleeping with my eyes open and there is a brown warrior approaching me. Brown warrior why must you come when the paralysis has taken over my body? When I’m alone and I’m the only one that can witness you? Brown warrior why must you fuel me with anger and desperation? Prevent me from exhaling and singing the right note to your key?
To speak of hegemonic institutions is to speak to the brown warrior. But how can I speak when the sleep paralysis has halted my tongue? When all I am capable of doing is witness and process the brown warriors discourse inside my mind? As I wait for my body to liberate itself from the paralysis, I am angered. Angered by the lack of agency to confront the matter when in act. That same anger is what leaves me with a pen and paper so I can write, analyze, heal and resist the institutions that have brought the brown warrior onto my life. Writing is painful. I dread writing. Having to articulate my thought process onto words is never quite enough. I feel like I’m justifying when I write. Like the police has taken me and my liberation is contingent on my ability to articulate their wants in the proper English way.
“Like I said. I don’t know who the brown warrior is.
Si se quien el guerrero café es.
I don’t know what you want from me?!
Te suplico que me dejes ir de esta prision. El es yo, ya te lo dije.
I only witness him when I’ve frozen and as much as I would like, the brown warrior never speaks to me.
No mas mira. Se acerca y me ensena sus aventuras. El amor de su vida y las personas que a matado para sobrevivir.
I’m telling you the truth.
No miento…”
How could I be lying? I keep giving but it is still not enough.
To speak of hegemonic institutions is to speak to the brown warrior. But how can I speak when the sleep paralysis has halted my tongue? When all I am capable of doing is witness and process the brown warriors discourse inside my mind? As I wait for my body to liberate itself from the paralysis, I am angered. Angered by the lack of agency to confront the matter when in act. That same anger is what leaves me with a pen and paper so I can write, analyze, heal and resist the institutions that have brought the brown warrior onto my life. Writing is painful. I dread writing. Having to articulate my thought process onto words is never quite enough. I feel like I’m justifying when I write. Like the police has taken me and my liberation is contingent on my ability to articulate their wants in the proper English way.
“Like I said. I don’t know who the brown warrior is.
Si se quien el guerrero café es.
I don’t know what you want from me?!
Te suplico que me dejes ir de esta prision. El es yo, ya te lo dije.
I only witness him when I’ve frozen and as much as I would like, the brown warrior never speaks to me.
No mas mira. Se acerca y me ensena sus aventuras. El amor de su vida y las personas que a matado para sobrevivir.
I’m telling you the truth.
No miento…”
How could I be lying? I keep giving but it is still not enough.
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