Fire

"Emboldened by love, I ignored the homophobia that constantly licked at my heels like flames from hell." Renee Martinez

"If all these people were my foes, who were my allies? When could I stop fighting?" Renee Martinez

When can i stop fighting? I'm laying in my bed, allowing my physical body to rest as I foresee a long night of strenuous tossing and turning, groaning, biting, punching and scratching once i fall asleep. Reading Renee Martinez's Del puente al arco iris: transformando de guerrera a mujer de la paz-From Bridge to Rainbow: Transforming from Warrior to Woman of Peace made me start thinking about the impact writings by women of color have had on my body, mind and spirit.

It's like every time i read a feminist of color text, someone or something grabs a match from the ground, still damp from last night's rain, and miraculously makes fire with it and lights the candle in my spirit. I feel alive again.

When can i stop fighting? Reading that line was like taking a blow to my heart. I could feel the fist smash my valves against my artery, mutating the physical nature of my heart for the hundredth time, a shape that resembles more and more the shape of my eight year old face. I wonder what that means? When i was eight years old my father raped me. I feel like my eight year old self symbolizes death and life. The death of any memory I had prior to the rape and life because I was transformed into a new being. Maybe that was the first time that i truly felt like i had to fight...

I mean growing up in Huntington Park, filled with cholos, drugs, alcoholism, poverty, and homophobia, I was born with two fist in the air- ready to fight and protect. But the rape, i feel, was like the fist time I had to use both fists to fight. i had always gotten away with using either the left or the right fist, by either punching my older brother with my right after pantsing me in public. Or using my left fist to knock on my mother's room door because i had a nightmare and i needed her love to make things better. I was always fighting. I was always the one fist warrior. But when my father battled me with three of his fists, his right, his left, and his dick, i had no choice but to fight with both of my fists. I was a two-fists warrior.

When can i stop fighting? I am laying in bed for the hundredth time because i foresee a night of unrest and tossing and turning as I fight off the demons with both of my fists. So much to fight for yet so much to make peace with.

My troubles are high,
So high that i cry everyday,
I get angry everyday,
I smile everyday,
I laugh everyday,
I sit in silence everyday,
I spit everyday.

I need to remember how to fight with one fist again. But how can I when the memories are so blurry?
I need to remember how to fight with one fist again so I can stop fighting all together.
I will wake up one day feeling well rested.
With no scratches,
No bruises,
No pain,
Just a lover next to me.

And when that day happens i would have transformed into el hombre de la paz. And the blows to my heart, whenever i read writings by feminist of color, will not shape my heart into my eight year old face but into all my years faces and those faces yet to come.

Tired

This quarter. These past ten weeks. Looking back at my writing I can’t help but feel pity for myself. I’m angry that I have allowed myself to get so hung up that I lost track of myself. Burnout. What the fuck? My body is so tired. I haven’t been able to sleep well this entire quarter. My mind is always thinking of the same bullshit. I wish I knew how to let go… and I am angry that I am still longing for the know-how on how to let go. It’s not going to happen David. There it goes again. Like venom going up my neck, into my brain.

Letting go.

My body,
These brown hands,
Red lips,
Think black hair,
Dark brown eyes that are doors to my soul,
My body−not yours.

I’ve noticed that I have been more conscious of my body because of this class. I never gave much thought as to how my body has been colonized, as much of my focus has been directed towards my colonized mind, but taking this class has served as the bridge between my mind/spirit and body. I’ve been less shameful to allow my body to be expressive, either when I’m on the dance floor jamming to some “Bed Rock” or when my body is aching and not being able to sleep because a white man called me a “faggot” the other night. My body has been drained but most of all it has been liberated.

When I write, I write with my body. The connection between my spirit and my fingers make it so my writing is my spirit.

I want this quarter to be over.

I’m tired of living in a space where I am continually reminded that as a queer man of color I will never be able to professionally move up.

I’m tired of being a white man’s secretary. Doing all the work, answering phone calls, delegating the work, yet still getting paid below minimum wage and only to have my work claimed by the privilege man with colored eyes. My eyes are colored too; you just never pay attention because brown isn’t what you desire.

I’m tired of being tired. But there’s an urgency to write. Like someone lit a firework inside me and the sparks from the firework are trying to burn through my insides to make a pathway for the firework to blow up in the sky. The thing is, it won’t burn me up or kill me. Just liberate the fire in my soul that’s been burning for the past quarter. It’s about to blow up−do you feel it?

woah.. woah woah woah... hahaha

i need to sleep. I hope i dream of mother nature. i need to feel refreshed

i need you

so i hate that i love you boy... i cant stan how much i hate you ... i love you motherfucker and just deal with it