Pride instead of fear.

I gotta say first of all that it is quite funny to me that I created this space to run away from mysef while at the same time it was a space to be fully myself even if I only ever glanced at myself back then and didn't want to see or call things as they were. This post, is in a way, a closing of a moment, coming full circle, maybe. Over ten years ago, when i first posted, I never thought I'd be where I am now both in the good parts and the bad parts of my current life but unlike back then, I have at least the notion that I can be proud and not just fearful of what  and who I am. This is not what I had planned to write about but just opening blogger brought up the feelings of back then and I had to say them out loud especially with the tittle I had planned for this one.
So, here I am, fearful still but proud as well.
...

Now for the actual post I had planned:

I?ve been listening to different interviews by a page dedicated to LGBTQ+ topics in my country. It is qute rare and I found it by chance. Because of the global pandemic from the start of the month they announced that there was not going to be a pride parade as there has been for the last ten years apparently (Something I didn't know). Instead they were going to host these interviews online and they were going to stream music "live" and they posted videos of past pride events. This whole situation with  the pandemic is the worst but I am pretty happy that it forced the organizers of the pride parade to do something different this year. It has allowed me to learn about things I didn't know were happening, groups I didn't know existed in my country.

There has been a couple of interviews that have touched me . One of them was with a trans woman that has co-founded a non profit organization to help other trans women. In her interview she talked about how at 14 she was kicked away from home for being trans and how she had to work as a prostitute for quite a while to survive. Later on she mentioned her family was and is stilll religious and at both those moments I felt my heart squeeze, I remembered the fear I had back when I first opened this blog, the fear of not being able to even come out to myself let alone my family because as most people in my country they are religious people and just like it happened to my own mother when grandma didn't approve of my father for her and kicked her out, I thought I was going to have to live that hardship. AT the time I had done my best to have something to fall back . So I waited for some years from the time I opened the blog, enough time to have my own place and a job in case my mother kicked me out of te house.

She didn't kicked me out, she wsant happy either and that first night she turned her back to me so that I stopped talking about it, I know she just didn't want to hear it. For quite a while we didn't talk about it but by then she knew and thought I knew she didn't like it or understand it she still loved me and I was and I am grateful that her love was truly unconditional. The other night when I heard about this woman, that like many other LGBTQ+ people in my country are kicked out from their home or wosrse, I felt so grateful that I didn't have to go thorugh that.

Later when i talked about that with my mom, she told me she understand and that at the time she felt a ot of fear. She still feels a lot of fear. She fears for my safety. She is afraid for me because the world is cruel, because people are cruel, because there are no legal protections in my country for not straight people. She wants to protect me and as part of that sometimes she'd rather I didn't talk about my not being straight, at least not where other people could hear and know about it because she doesnt want anyone to hurt me.

I understand and I am afraid too but I think that we shouldnt be afraid, or at least we shouldnt let out fear keep us hidden. I remembered this story I?ve been told a thousand times.

Back when my father learned he was going to be a father and despite the fact that it got my mom kicked from her house, he was so happy and sure that he was going to be the father of a baby girl. Back then, when a man realized that he was going to have a girl they were always sad and disappointed. Even mothers got sad and disappointed, having a girl was no motive for celebration because a girl was less, because a girl came to the world to suffer, because being a woman was too hard.

My father was an exception to the usual, to the normal of back then, instead of being afraid, instead of thinking how tough it was going to be for me to be a woman in a sexist society, he was proud and happy and he wanted to celebrate the fact that I was going to be a girl.

That, I think, is what we all should do. We shouldn't be afraid that our children, our brothers and sisters might be part of the LGBT+ community we shouldn't be afraid to be part of it, we should celebrate and be proud because maybe, with time, like how nowadays fathers are happy to have little girls as little boys as children, maybe one day, parents won't feel the need to kick out their children, parents won't feel an overwhelming fear if their child comes out to them.

Of course, it is important to be cautious, fear is there for a reason, fear is there to protect us and keep us from dangerous situation but it is not there to keep us from being ourselves, from being proud of who we are.

Feminine

He wakes up in the middle of the night,

the too many drinks he had chew his insides mercilessly.

He comes back to his bed, it feels cold,

it always is when you're alone.

He sits on the edge of the bed, head

hung, a clear view of his empty belly.

He reaches and places a hand over it,

wishing it could be home for a life.

He curses his name again and again.

Hands too big, too much hair, body all wrong.

If only he could add an S to the way

he's called, three letters instead of two.

He mourns for what wasn't given to him,

for what he longs.

It's despair walking in his shoes, not the ones he wants.

Girl, woman, girlfriend, bride, wife,

mom, grandma, sweet melody he'll never listen.

Empty belly, empty

heart.

****

Not only I wasn´t able to post this before but also I´ve been wondering if it´s...if it could be offensive, of course it´s not my intention, not at all

Porcelain Doll

Unique, different, undefined, special: my love. So beautiful in whatever he chooses to wear; in whatever he chooses to be...so elegant and perfect.

Time slips by... always there, always unnoticed.

He tries and tries, it's not that my love doesn't support him; it's that he just can't stand his existence anymore. I know as I look at him across the table, pale, no make-up, matted hair that once shone in waves, white nightie, too thin to be healthy.

His eyes are tired of tears, tired of lack of sleep, tired of his now gray days, too much fighting, too much trying. The world is too heavy on his shoulders. I'm not with him but even in my sleep I can tell he's sitting at the dining table in the dark, listening to the ticking clock marking too long minutes in the middle of the night.

Tick-tock tick-tock. The pendulum clock was banished of the house but we can still listen to its echo, marking, cutting the air and our skin.

I go to him, sit on my place across from him. There is nothing to say. I wish I knew how to make him better. From the seat next to him he takes something and places it on the table. I gasp in horror.

"Please don't" unshed tears fill my eyes

"Please, let me go" a whispered plea; big colored eyes showing me his pain. I shake my head, reaching for the gun that now points at his temple

"No, no, don't do this..." I talk. I don't know what I'm saying; all I know is that I have to make my beautiful stay. I say it all, I plead, I beg, I promise...

There's a gloom around him from then on, as if the coldest of winters settled eternally on his soul. He sits by the picture window and looks outside with a loss stare, withering away. Can't be left alone, he doesn't sleep anymore, he doesn't eat anymore, he doesn't smile anymore.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six.... you never realize when the countdown is about to be over.

Just a second later and at the same time a long time after that night in the dining room, I'm in my room, trying to sleep, my mind on him who refused to go to bed. My mind knows, my soul knows and even if my eyes didn't see it through the walls I can tell the exact moment that he pulled the trigger just as his care-taker came in the room. My scream and the ripping sound awake me and I run to him. I didn't see it happen but the part of me that is in him did and it showed me.

And I feel his pain, not only through our minds but through his moans of pain, bad aim, not enough strength. He's on the floor; I can't get to him fast enough, his caretaker glued in place.

The first thing I see is his thick scarlet blood staining the floor and the side of his face ripped away. He's shaking, too much pain. His white chiffon nightie is pristine; he looks like a porcelain doll that now is broken by her own doing.

I carefully pull him to me as I urge the caretaker to call the emergency number but my beloved and I know that it's too late. NO! My mind screams even as it feels his pain and his life escaping away from that hideous hole on the side of his head

"No, no, no, no, no -I rock back and forth with him half on my lap as if that will stop the unavoidable- no, no, my love, my love, don't leave me, no, no, no, my love, love, don't go..." My tears run free and there's sadness and regret in his eyes, not because his wrong doing but because he feels it's killing me too, the part of me that is in him is screaming in pain. Why? Why did you do this? Love, why? It cries as my audible voice keeps imploring him to stay with me even as I know it's in vain.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, his mind, his eyes speak to mine. I didn't think it'd hurt you as bad. I didn't think...

"No, no, no love, my love, please, stay, no, no, no, oh, please, no..." My words melt into the next

Why does time doesn´t stop even as life stops even if you breathe and move? Why is it so cruel and takes you back and forward in the blink of an eye?

I wake up crying, reliving those nights. The echo of my voice and his haunted eyes are always filling my dreams. He sleeps his eternal sleep in his white chiffon nightie, his favorite, looking like a porcelain doll. I still beg him to stay.

****
written dec/22/2014.
A/N: not sure why or where this one came from but I had to write it, like a day or two after I hastily wrote it on my phone right after I woke up saying that line of "no, no, no..." I saw that picture and it felt kinda like a sign. Perhaps it´s not the best thing to post as the first post of a new year but... it´s what I have.

I have to say my brain did this on its own, like the whole thing as I slept.... You might say that it´s not wonder that it´s so bad haha

Manly

It is so weird that I wake up in the morning feeling like I've actually slept seven hours but that's how I woke up this morning when my alarm clock pull me out of my warm sleep. I have to change the tone of my alarm, I thought, it was a song I liked but I had started to hate it since it was the one that stole my dreams away.

I sat up, yawned and rubbed my eyes as I moved out from under the blanket. Blindly I looked for my sleepers with my feet lifting them quickly when they touched the cold floor. I stood up and pulled my pajama pants up, for some reason they always hung down my hips when I wake up.

Without turning the lights on, I went to the bathroom and automatically showered, my eyes were open but without seeing the light blue walls or really focusing in anything else. My hands washed my skin as I did every day for the past twenty two years. My father had always said that I showered wrong, I didn't care. He said you were to start from your head down and not from your feet up like I did. I huffed as I randomly thought about it, already cleaned and completely awake. One thing missing: to brush my teeth.

I keep my toothpaste and toothbrush inside a white cabinet with a mirror on its door over the sink. I put the blue paste on my toothbrush, I made a mental note to buy another, I'll soon need a new one. For some reason right before I start cleaning my teeth I always look at myself on the mirror.

After my shower mist had covered the mirror, I cleaned it with my hand and saw my reflection. I saw my eyes first, deep dark brown, the color of the kind of coffee that could keep you awake all night, my short eye lashes... My round face didn't look as round, instead it had angles, my jaw had changed, a shadow covered it. I touched my cheek

"I need to shave" my mind said to me knowing something I didn't. I blinked and focused on my face. I was so accustomed to see my face that I had assumed it was the same and had dismissed the new shape, the strong jaw line and squared forehead, the darker eyebrows, the short hair that I had just combed back with my fingers....even the fact that I had to bend down to properly look at my face on the mirror

I refocused my eyes, noticing my neck wasn't as thin as before and now it had something... "Adam's

apple" my brain informed me. Ok, I said appraising the slightly raised skin over the bone. And I moved my eyes lower, where my frail shoulders and lean arms had been I had broad shoulders and the arms that come with the body I had woken up in.

I looked at myself again, taking in my face, neck and naked shoulders. I looked a lot like my father but leaner. I looked like my brother but younger. I kinda looked like my father's brother but without curls. The man had always been handsome.

I realized this was me. I had gone to bed as a girl and had woken up as a man. I felt pleased, not because I had a new body but because like the other one, it was my body and I felt comfortable in it. Maybe my mind had changed a little, too, I liked the way I looked, I liked it a lot. With a laugh that didn't have my former higher pitch I went out of the bathroom. This was me.