TDoR 2015

I remember that back when I was in High school in El Salvador back to 2006 I was being who I was without shame of being afraid. High School to me was a little paradise where I could be free with my sexuality and incredible nobody will judge me about it. Most of my classmates knew me for years or since kinder garden so it was like if we were family...even if we didn't agree on many aspects we would respect that.

A gay and a lesbian being besties.....how wonderful. We didn't know any other queer at school or in our hometown, it was so fun to be 14 and not knowing anybody queer but do know who we were. I remember the conversations about how we were together in kindergarten and how she came to my 5yo birthday party and how we always knew who we were.
We had a diva friend that his name was Maurice and he used to do drag and go to the capital and dress as a girl, we all respected him. Maurice rocked and was fun to hang with. Little by little Raven and me used to be more confident with who we were, since we were like the "queer punks" of the prom, nobody ever messed with us because of our sexuality, in fact we used to be friends with almost everyone.
One day she decided to tell her mom, idea that freaked the shit out of me because I never came out....because my journal outed me two years before I started highschool when my mom and dad read it. So I knew that her mom would freak out but maybe not in the same way that mines did due to the fact she wasn't religious. But still she did freaked out, I was there for her but we remain being bestfriends during high school, after we graduated and on my first years of college. She used to visit me at my college campus and we used to hang out while I waited for my next class or after college. She started to hang out more with queer folks than me because she had more free time than me, so it was understandable that I passed to a second degree. But I still remember one day she looked so shocked and I asked her what was the matter, it was just 4 months after high school ended. Maurice was found dead, ha had been stone, bashed, raped and finally killed. Of course his murder was on the news papers....."Un transvesti asesinado" (A murdered trasvesti). A case was never opened. We then realized that our high school sanctuary was over and that the real world hated us even if they said they were ok with us. One of us dead. I felt weird.

I didn't stop myself from wanting to be free. I moved to the capital and met more friends who were queers my same age (which it was 17 by then). I have met some of the friends that I still keep in touch since then......and others that have met the same fate as Maurice. The last one I remember was stabbed and left to dead in a public transportation.....a case (again) was never open.
I came to the US running away from the reality that regular Salvadorans citizen in my country go through day by day, but to be Salvadoran AND Queer...is a double threat. If you don't live on the privileged bubble of society you can always be touched by the bloody cruel inhuman reality that every Salvadoran lives every day and be killed and be forgotten and just be another number and literally be FORGOTTEN.

To live with all this freedom or maybe just the normal life for many first world country citizens was finally a true privilege that I was able to finally enjoy. Walk in the streets without fear (even tho I am in NYC) but being able to see my own LGBQIPGNC community being free and walking fearless. I started to volunteer with the Anti Violence Project of NYC because I have always wanted to do more for my community and what a best way to do it.
Of course my mind started to expand and to learn more and more and more that you get to a point that your mind and heart can't take a step back because this is who you are now, and you are an aware being.
And I realized that as a Non-binary and Queer I was good and I was not alone. As well meeting more folks with same and different identities and personalities, so lovely. At the same time I started to realize of how our Sisters and Brother with Trans Experience were facing more visibility as a few celebrities were coming out and starting their evolution, how eyes were on them, on a community that most of the time was being ignored even within the community.
I was now aware how many sisters and brothers were murdered just because of the fact that they were being and living under their own terms. I started to realized that trans murders in countries like mine were not being even counted as a number, that the number would never be accurate since the authorities and politicians didn't and won't take care of it since they won't say it on your face but LGBTQIPGNC lives do not matter as much as "normal" lives....since "normal" lives are not even being taken care of....they will probably just laugh at your face or tell you "yeah we care" and then file your petition for.... maybe forever?
It gives me so much rage to know that the world we live in is full of so much IRRATIONAL violence that is killing so many innocent lives and beautiful human beings just for who they are.
What have we done?
BEING?
I still remember the firs time I heard the poem by Assata Shakur:

"It is our duty to fight for our freedom. 
 It is our duty to win. 
 We must love each other and support each other. 
 We have nothing to lose but our chains." 

I read this everyday that I am feeling defeated, because it reminds me I have to fight for myself and I have to do a change for my community and that I have to stand up and keep this fight for those like me who doesn't have a voice anymore or those who haven't found theirs yet.

WE AS HUMANITY. Have a moral responsibility in our shoulders and we have to keep fighting for what is good and for those lives that matters, because yes as all lives matters we have to fight more for those who are unprivileged and for those who are a minority within a minority.....let's remember that we are all one, and that we are fighting for our EQUALITY within the real world. We want to stop dying for not being a privileged straight male or because we do not fir the patriarchal rules and society.
We have to fight for justice to be brought to every one of our sisters and brothers that have been murdered and we have to bring awareness, respect and acceptance from those who doesn't understand to those that keep living and fighting every day. Because we just want to live and have full rights as citizens of this world, and live happily under our own standards without disrespecting anyone for being who we are, because it is our life and our right to live under our own terms.

Trans Lives Matter.

We must stand together and keep walking and stop fearing because the fight will continue, until we reach equality for all of us.

Love,

Mario.

Human

I feel like if I'm going to break

But I'm not even cracked

Is just the feeling

The pressure
Of being
Doing

Aspiring

Dreaming
Wandering

Things that brings me down a bit
but 

Then
I look back 

And I'm not even close
To who I was before

Or where I was

Life has changed me so much

I have become so much

But I remain being my essence
That child that loves to smile
The man who loves so strong that hurts
The boy who loves to play
The person who has happiness and joy to share
The man that loves melancholy
The boy that cries sometimes
The child that gets hurt
The person who sobs but keeps walking
The human
That is stronger than the past 

That used to be weak, fragile and dark

Now....There are only remains of those blurry days

Remains that come back
To the surface when
The memories of the past flourish sometimes

But I'm not that person anymore

I am vulnerable yes. 

But I am not weak nor broken anymore. 

I am and I exist and I live
I stand up for myself now. 

I do have moments as everyone else

And I am accepting the simple fact. 

That I am fucking human too. 

:) 

Baking

I am baking
And I'm thinking about you
And I'm thinking about me
And I'm thinking about this.
I'm in a committed relationship with myself since a few years already.
It was very hard to develop it because I think that loving myself was hard to do.
And I'm finally coming to terms that working in yourself is a great investment of your time and your will.
But also I have learned and come to terms that this relationship with me is a never ending cycle that need to be prioritized because in order to love someone else....yes, I have to love myself.
But is hard. Because I want you.
And I desire you.
And I still think of you in my mornings and in my nights.
I think on how much happiness will give me to try to make you happy and please you and make love to you and with you.
And how awesome could be being equals together.
But......life so many times doesn't give us what we want but what we need.

For now I'm still emotional invested with you....because unfortunately you are fucking worth it.....but it seems that is very unfortunate that we are both not standing in the same universe for now.
But I do have feelings for you.
And maybe will always have.
We will be living in a city of millions and in this concrete jungle so even if I just see you once at year or in the subway as two random people who smile at each other...my heart will probably beat for you a little bit.
This my nature. I am.
I just finished baking.
So

Baking

Warmth,

Orlando