1 week ago - 
1
1
the moments of keeping
i keep eating,
even though i am not hungry
i keep breathing,
even though i am suffocating.
i keep moving,
even though i am standing still
i keep laughing,
even though i am crying.
i am surviving, i am surviving.
i am surviving even though i am dying.
3 weeks ago - 1
1unseen
People who live in cities learn directions from streets and freeway. Buildings are the monuments of survival in these arid landscapes. Trees grow but are planted by people who drive them in cars with their seatbelts on.
I have a birth story. It involves spirits and meant to be’s, and its only shared with those who are very close to me. I remember big mountain which was always to the north and east. I remember the sound of your teeth. I know the density of sand and how it will fall if you hold it in your hand. I know that drawings were made in secret and below my feet, and I know you were always part of me.
run away from your life today and sew leather onto your toes. practice practicing to breath. hold on tight to the pieces of clay that keep us safe. you think you can chisel faces of your heroes into the rock wall scenes, but I know dirt that formed itself into woman over time and her peaks sing over the lands that she made baren of hands. This will never grow into a man, this will never live in your time, this will always be part of mine.
There is no English word for people native to this land. We were called Indians because India was a place to chisel into the sand. I am not an Indian nor am I not an Indian. I am the silence between and I am the unseen.
This christmas,
i am giving
you up
like an old man gives up stairs
like a pyrotechnic gives up flares
like a stoic creatures’ fatal stare.
I am giving you up even though you will always be there.
I am quitting you,
like a smoker quits cigarettes,
like a cat laidy gives away her pets
like a better gives up on their bets.
Your memories are useless, they’ve grown old
and like an untended garden they have crept into places they dont belong
and I, with them, no longer can see. Its time to trim them before they trim me.
Im giving you up, I’m wrapping up the future we were meant to have. I’m using the ribbons and bows that were meant for you to hold. I am putting it in a box and burying it at sea.
I know that you will always hold me, and I will always hold you dearly. For your joy I will forever care. But this Christmas Im giving you up, even if you will always be there.
![bornthisbrown:
This pretty much sums up my current process.. please read it.
As gay activists from the Castro to Lebanon commemorated International Day Against Homophobia over the weekend , those in Latin America could celebrate recent legal changes in Nicaragua and Panama that end the criminalization of homosexual acts in Central and South America.
Despite such legal progress, however, many gay Latinos continue to seek political asylum in the United States, gay rights advocates said.
“Homophobia is not something you get over overnight,” said Dusty Araujo of theNational Immigrant Justice Center. Talk to political refugees and advocates like Araujo and you learn that despite evolving attitudes in Latin America, homophobic violence is still common, forcing hundreds of sexual minorities to seek asylum in the United States, many in San Francisco.
From his North Beach office cramped with floor-to-ceiling file cabinets containing archives of gay movements around the world, Araujo acts as a one-man resource to those seeking to file for asylum on the grounds of homophobic persecution. The majority of his requests come from Mexico, where same-sex unions were legalized in the capital two years ago. “Movements of people coming out and standing for their rights have helped curb some of the violence,” he said, “but it continues.”
To prove his point, Araujo punches Mexico into his computer. Aside from helping immigrants find an attorney and helping navigate the process of asylum application, his work includes maintaining an online database of anti-gay and anti-transgender violence around the world—documents that can buttress an applicant’s asylum claim.
Dusty Araujo of the National Immigrant Justice Center
Within seconds, he finds a March 13 news report of the killing of a 30-year old gay indigenous man from Oaxaca. Other recent additions include the murder of a transsexual in Chile and the arrest of a group of transvestites in Guyana.
Despite reams of evidence of anti-gay violence in those countries, receiving asylum is no easy process. Applicants must prove they endured abuse on the part of authorities or that authorities failed to provide safety from abuse. Alternatively if, for instance, an immigrant came out of the closet after they left their native country, they must provide evidence that they legitimately fear for their safety upon returning.
“This is not something you can fake and punk your way through like a walk in the park,” Araujo said. “Many people from a particular country apply, and only a small percentage is granted.
Because the U.S. government does not distinguish between asylum applications for sexual minorities and those for other persecuted groups, no one knows for sure how many LGBT immigrants apply for asylum, and at what rate they are granted.
Araujo’s personal database of the applicants he’s helped from 1990 through 2007 offers a starting point. Of 46 applicants from Guatemala, just six were granted asylum. Of 53 from El Salvador, eight received asylum. Of 249 Mexican applicants, just 36 asylum requests were approved.
And, experts reported, the process may be getting more difficult—an ironic consequence of the recent gay legal victories in Latin America. Because countries are now perceived as more tolerant of homosexuality, they say fighting an asylum case is only getting harder.
“We have a lot of queer clients from Mexico,” said San Francisco attorney Arwen Swink, who specializes in asylum cases for sexual minorities. Nevertheless, since Mexico City approved legal partnerships a year ago, Swink says judges are more resistant to asylum cases.
Claudia Ochoa was granted asylum, but can never travel to her native Guatemala.
For applicants, the process can be not only long and costly, but emotionally straining. “You have to put out your life like an open book,” said Claudia Ochoa, 36, who left Guatemala for San Francisco in 2004 after living in fear for her life when she came out of the closet to her conservative family. Shortly after arriving in a new country, the immigrant had to recount the most painful chapters of her life—including childhood incest and domestic violence—to a lawyer, an immigration officer, and a courtroom.
Ochoa, who teaches private Spanish classes in the Mission District, considers herself lucky “to find the right people at the right moment.” It may not have happened, she said, if she had not landed in San Francisco.
“Here [asylum] is something more known, more heard about,” and thus within a month of immigrating here with her girlfriend on a travel visa, local friends told her about the option and the process moved quickly. If an immigrant does not apply for asylum within one year, the process becomes much more difficult.
Honduran Roberto Martinez was not so fortunate, and his experience is probably closer to the typical struggle of a gay fleeing persecution. As a teenager in a violent Honduran city, Martinez, whose name has been changed so as to not impact his case, witnessed his brother murdered by gang members, and a gay friend molested and HIV positive. “I saw these things that were happening to my friend, so I maintained that I wasn’t gay,” Martinez said recently in the office of a Mission District gay youth organization where he volunteers.
At 17 he could no longer endure the repression, and crossed two countries alone, eventually making a home in the cement plaza of San Francisco Civic Center. After four years that included drug dealing, unprotected sex, arrest, rehabilitation, and finally, a determination to help other vulnerable gay youth, promote safe sex, and attend school, Martinez now faces an order of deportation. Only this January did he learn about the option of asylum.
Since the one-year bar long since passed, Martinez has a trickier case to fight. Swink, his attorney, says he has a better chance at winning a Withholding of Removal case—similar to asylum but leaving the immigrant in a kind of legal limbo. If he wins, Swink says, “he could never leave the country, would have no path to a greencard, no path to citizenship.”
But familiar with the violent gangs of his home country and their rampant homophobia, Martinez would prefer to stay no matter the cost than return to Honduras.
“I could not walk like I do here“ Martinez said softly, a colorful scarf wrapped tight over his gray and pink sweater. “I could not have my partner, a job. I could not study. If I was seen as effeminate, it would come to a point where they could attack me, physically, verbally.”
Now living with a partner in the Mision District, Martinez is awaiting his appointment with an immigration officer, and collecting donations at drag shows to help pay his legal fees.
“I am asking the universe that the doors of political asylum open for me,” he said, plastic in his ears hinting at a hearing condition he says will eventually render him deaf. “To be able to study, go to school, to study sign language.”
Dusty Araujo said financial mobility for a Latin American gay man or woman can be very difficult. “They know that in their country, they’re not going to be able to climb the ladder of success,” Araujo said. “That ladder’s not available to them. They’re not going to be able to be important people anywhere because of their sexual orientation. So their fleeing here is partly because of their sex orientation but partly a survival mechanism, hoping that they are going to find a way to succeed in their lives.”
For Martinez, he must weigh that hope against all that he’ll give up if he wins his case. “One of the desires is to stay in this country,” he said. “One of the losses is relinquishing the right to be in your country. So you can lose a lot with your sexual orientation. I could go back into the closet, but that life I had before I don’t want. I want to continue opening wider that door.”](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvcv1zFI2l1qcvro7o1_250.jpg)
This pretty much sums up my current process.. please read it.
As gay activists from the Castro to Lebanon commemorated International Day Against Homophobia over the weekend , those in Latin America could celebrate recent legal changes in Nicaragua and Panama that end the criminalization of homosexual acts in Central and South America.
Despite such legal progress, however, many gay Latinos continue to seek political asylum in the United States, gay rights advocates said.
“Homophobia is not something you get over overnight,” said Dusty Araujo of theNational Immigrant Justice Center. Talk to political refugees and advocates like Araujo and you learn that despite evolving attitudes in Latin America, homophobic violence is still common, forcing hundreds of sexual minorities to seek asylum in the United States, many in San Francisco.
From his North Beach office cramped with floor-to-ceiling file cabinets containing archives of gay movements around the world, Araujo acts as a one-man resource to those seeking to file for asylum on the grounds of homophobic persecution. The majority of his requests come from Mexico, where same-sex unions were legalized in the capital two years ago. “Movements of people coming out and standing for their rights have helped curb some of the violence,” he said, “but it continues.”
To prove his point, Araujo punches Mexico into his computer. Aside from helping immigrants find an attorney and helping navigate the process of asylum application, his work includes maintaining an online database of anti-gay and anti-transgender violence around the world—documents that can buttress an applicant’s asylum claim.
Dusty Araujo of the National Immigrant Justice Center
Within seconds, he finds a March 13 news report of the killing of a 30-year old gay indigenous man from Oaxaca. Other recent additions include the murder of a transsexual in Chile and the arrest of a group of transvestites in Guyana.
Despite reams of evidence of anti-gay violence in those countries, receiving asylum is no easy process. Applicants must prove they endured abuse on the part of authorities or that authorities failed to provide safety from abuse. Alternatively if, for instance, an immigrant came out of the closet after they left their native country, they must provide evidence that they legitimately fear for their safety upon returning.
“This is not something you can fake and punk your way through like a walk in the park,” Araujo said. “Many people from a particular country apply, and only a small percentage is granted.
Because the U.S. government does not distinguish between asylum applications for sexual minorities and those for other persecuted groups, no one knows for sure how many LGBT immigrants apply for asylum, and at what rate they are granted.
Araujo’s personal database of the applicants he’s helped from 1990 through 2007 offers a starting point. Of 46 applicants from Guatemala, just six were granted asylum. Of 53 from El Salvador, eight received asylum. Of 249 Mexican applicants, just 36 asylum requests were approved.
And, experts reported, the process may be getting more difficult—an ironic consequence of the recent gay legal victories in Latin America. Because countries are now perceived as more tolerant of homosexuality, they say fighting an asylum case is only getting harder.
“We have a lot of queer clients from Mexico,” said San Francisco attorney Arwen Swink, who specializes in asylum cases for sexual minorities. Nevertheless, since Mexico City approved legal partnerships a year ago, Swink says judges are more resistant to asylum cases.
Claudia Ochoa was granted asylum, but can never travel to her native Guatemala.
For applicants, the process can be not only long and costly, but emotionally straining. “You have to put out your life like an open book,” said Claudia Ochoa, 36, who left Guatemala for San Francisco in 2004 after living in fear for her life when she came out of the closet to her conservative family. Shortly after arriving in a new country, the immigrant had to recount the most painful chapters of her life—including childhood incest and domestic violence—to a lawyer, an immigration officer, and a courtroom.
Ochoa, who teaches private Spanish classes in the Mission District, considers herself lucky “to find the right people at the right moment.” It may not have happened, she said, if she had not landed in San Francisco.
“Here [asylum] is something more known, more heard about,” and thus within a month of immigrating here with her girlfriend on a travel visa, local friends told her about the option and the process moved quickly. If an immigrant does not apply for asylum within one year, the process becomes much more difficult.
Honduran Roberto Martinez was not so fortunate, and his experience is probably closer to the typical struggle of a gay fleeing persecution. As a teenager in a violent Honduran city, Martinez, whose name has been changed so as to not impact his case, witnessed his brother murdered by gang members, and a gay friend molested and HIV positive. “I saw these things that were happening to my friend, so I maintained that I wasn’t gay,” Martinez said recently in the office of a Mission District gay youth organization where he volunteers.
At 17 he could no longer endure the repression, and crossed two countries alone, eventually making a home in the cement plaza of San Francisco Civic Center. After four years that included drug dealing, unprotected sex, arrest, rehabilitation, and finally, a determination to help other vulnerable gay youth, promote safe sex, and attend school, Martinez now faces an order of deportation. Only this January did he learn about the option of asylum.
Since the one-year bar long since passed, Martinez has a trickier case to fight. Swink, his attorney, says he has a better chance at winning a Withholding of Removal case—similar to asylum but leaving the immigrant in a kind of legal limbo. If he wins, Swink says, “he could never leave the country, would have no path to a greencard, no path to citizenship.”
But familiar with the violent gangs of his home country and their rampant homophobia, Martinez would prefer to stay no matter the cost than return to Honduras.
“I could not walk like I do here“ Martinez said softly, a colorful scarf wrapped tight over his gray and pink sweater. “I could not have my partner, a job. I could not study. If I was seen as effeminate, it would come to a point where they could attack me, physically, verbally.”
Now living with a partner in the Mision District, Martinez is awaiting his appointment with an immigration officer, and collecting donations at drag shows to help pay his legal fees.
“I am asking the universe that the doors of political asylum open for me,” he said, plastic in his ears hinting at a hearing condition he says will eventually render him deaf. “To be able to study, go to school, to study sign language.”
Dusty Araujo said financial mobility for a Latin American gay man or woman can be very difficult. “They know that in their country, they’re not going to be able to climb the ladder of success,” Araujo said. “That ladder’s not available to them. They’re not going to be able to be important people anywhere because of their sexual orientation. So their fleeing here is partly because of their sex orientation but partly a survival mechanism, hoping that they are going to find a way to succeed in their lives.”
For Martinez, he must weigh that hope against all that he’ll give up if he wins his case. “One of the desires is to stay in this country,” he said. “One of the losses is relinquishing the right to be in your country. So you can lose a lot with your sexual orientation. I could go back into the closet, but that life I had before I don’t want. I want to continue opening wider that door.”
(via dreamactnow)
1 month ago - 9
9
not art
I am not an artist. i am a cry let out from the heart, deep and below languages that place me above fingernails and teeth.
I am not an artist. I am a boy who ran away at 12, I joined the circus and wore tights and glitter glue on my cheeks, and the sticky pink cotton got under my skin and i rode the horse while standing on my hands and one day i will become a man.
I am not an artist.I am a rag on the table and my hands are wrinkled and old, and i wash and i wash and i cook and i clean and i do everything in between and i dance as i do it and i sing and i sing
I am not an artist, I am a petal that fell from the rose that grew between the tracks in the sand and i was unplanned and i was unplanned. and the wind will blow me to where next i go, and my seed will sew, my seed will sew.
I am not an artist, I am a video that records the porn for your tv and for your internet screen, and I capture the scene the way i see it and i try to see it casually and i turn on an off with your touch and i dont get out much and i dont get out much.
I am not an artist, I am a flicker of light and I crawl around through the night under pillows and tickle your nose and i crawl above the sea and the sun chases me but i am only seen after the rain, when the dew pushes me off into the sky. and the rainbow springs out from my eye. and i tip and i toe and the i into the you, through. through veins in your leg and into your soul, where i ask your for you to show me your glow.
I am not an artist, I am the sea and I have taken many with me I have taken many with me. and I boil over and fall into the sky and i fly and I fly, and i release through the mountains and into the springs and i bring and i bring. and i dive into the earth and pull roots with my teeth. and i sit in your kitchen and i tickle your feet.
soon we will not understand each other, just like we dont speak to eachother already
dear you, internet. dear you.
out there you are somewhere true.
dear internet. internet, dear you.
in your thoughts you are off there too.
in my thoughts i am off here, i.
in your fingers you are on [f] [j] [y].
dear you, internet. dear __________.
connect. c0nnec+. (0nn3c+.(0^^3c+.(0^^3(+. to me too.
bauetiful
I just went to bed very softly
i just went to bed and said goodnight
knowing pretty well gently
that i may stay up the night
i told you many stories
and you listened very tight
i just went to bed softly
and its okay, things are actually allright.
(via anjalouise)
war-m
Her hand moved slowly across her forehead, feeling the salty sweat that her body had pushed through her pores. Her fingers moved slower than even the bulging drops of water as they crept off her brow and hit her cheek. It was the type of weather in which you can hear the heat as well as you can see and feel its breath. The beautiful weather that reminds your body where it belongs- to the earth and nothing else. She remembered back to the beginning of time as she knew it, back to days without speech and comprehension. When the same dry dirt which formed grand canyons held her small toes in its grasp and choked her baby cries from her throat before they were formed. She remembered the old drunks who were not allowed inside who would play with her and treat her kind. Lost fathers finding lost children among the old pizza boxes from hand out soup kitchens. First memories encrusting bitter bread and relatable existence’s from adults who chose responsibilities instead to give up. That heat which covered her then and crept into the sky to follow her the rest of her life. That heat which returned to her on the blue paint chipped steps in which she held watermelons close and swallowed the seeds. In which she could then speak but didn’t as she learned that skin not only feels the warmth of fire but also the biting cold of color, felt most when one does not belong. She remembered the different type of warmth she felt when she believed for once that she did belong, a scattered thought that tricked the consciousness into ideas of forever and never. The warmth of sweat, she remembered, will hold true past space and time and lyric and rhyme. To feel it, she confessed to herself, was to feel alive and to be alive. To feel warmth of belonging, instead, can come and go and is at all times unpredictable. No this heat, although it often is told to encompass the fires of hell, it holds together truth of prickly deserts and storms, of memories ripped and torn, the warmth of life that blossoms in pain is the only color that can bring the rain. When sweat and fire embraced to live regardless of the weather, warmth you can give to others she decided to remembered.
International Year of Youth 1985
the year of my birth, almost 26 rotations of calendars ago.
