Log 15

Let me be fully queer. Even just in my room. Even just for a bit. This is my Pride Month celebration.

Listening to The Old Man Soundtrack ‘Dead Ground’ featuring Joe Henry

The sun hits pretty strongly in the morning even with the curtains drawn. Even if I tried sleeping again after early morning prayer, I’d only just achieve a kind of half-sleep state. But that’s all fine. Especially these days.

Mother will be gone for weeks, father for days. I wish it were the other day around (and that shit brother also went away). But I’ll take this blessing.

Because I can expand my queerness for the time being. My heart’s queer. My soul’s queer. All my inside’s queer. My inside is a thousand miles wide and a thousand miles deep and every inch of it is queer. The aura of my queerness ends beneath my skin and I have to keep it at bay. On the skin and beyond it, I must perform. It starts on the akin, expands to clothes and outlook and dialogue. I put up with this front because I have to. To survive. I wish I could get away but I’m still saving money and the pandemic's still raging. And I have to keep my queerness kept and precious.

I always celebrate Pride in solitude and reflection. Let the queers march in Marikina and Makati and Manila. Let them represent! Let them wave the flag of freedom and protest for our liberation and rights. Bless us all!

I’m happiest celebrating alone. Even now in this insular town filled with dangerous conservatives, I don't regret not joining the queer celebrations. The only way for me to honor this month is through rumination.

But the proximity with queer friends and lovers is ever so present in the Metro. That’s what I miss most and I’ve been cooped up too long.

Today, my queer space is not just my internal body and thoughts but this 4-by-5-meter room too. I’ll be nude the entire day reading only the queerest texts, watching only the queerest films, and listening only to the queerest songs. Let my queerness be bodily manifested and practiced. Performed on the external. Just until the next sunrise.

Happy Pride Month!

Thank you for reading.