So I try to stay quiet and avoid being myself who desired Black Supremacy and a gender that I wasn’t born with, so I stay quiet because I like waking up to the soft murmurs of media conglomerates who aren’t in fact reading my thoughts or watching me in my room. My lover has changed from someone I wasn’t attracted to but wanted to be attracted to because of what they Symbolized, to someone I still have a crush on and don’t mythologize because I feel like I know who he really is, and not just what I’ve seen him to be. Slowly i am remembering what i desire doesn’t have to be what i fear. This expulsion of happiness is step one.
Pilar Estrella Huerta (nickname Peluchi) was born and raised in Metro Manila, Philippines until the age of 14, when they immigrated to Northern California. They received their bachelor’s degree in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley, with a minor in City & Regional Planning. Currently, Pilar works as a housing & homelessness program analyst for the State of California, and lives in stolen Me-Wuk land, legally known as Sacramento, with their fiancé A, their dog Miley and three cats, Beemo, Billie and Cass. If you like their work, they write book reviews/ reflections on IG: find them @pilartyping
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