I was called Mama's boy.
Papa took me to school but mother cleaned me up well. I looked like an overly sanitized acolyte entering first grade.
My demeanor carried a gait of shyness and I remember crying over the slightest provocation. This did not escape the notoriety of peers. I would hear: "Obat makanyan ya ing kumag a yan. Maka-ima ya ... lawen me, pane yang masanting piblas ... Bakla yata." (Look at the nincompoop: he seems tied to his mom ... look how well dressed he is ... he is probably gay.)
I enjoyed play but avoided unnecessary roughness. I preferred mind-games. This sponged more jeers. One day, I decided to take arms. I uncloaked my timidity and turned gangsta.
I got initiated into the wild of brusque young men. I took on their guns and began the hunt for weaklings. I joined the raucous chants towards lame. Gay-taunt proved most satisfying to my new induction.
As I went deep into the labyrinth, I began to notice the sissyness of my strong company. We were all trying to enthrone ourselves as boss at the expense of weaklings. Such a cowardly agenda, by all estimates.
When I became a follower of Christ, I received a deviation from my DNA. Gone was my need to be superior. I was made to realize that in God's eyes, all humans act the same way because of an inherited malignancy. The Sin of Adam is upon us. We prey on gay. They tail us. No one wins.
If God is God, then His purview is absolute. His word is clear. Straight or gay, moral or otherwise, religious or pagan, no one escapes the assault of our deep spiritual acquiescence: we have all been transplanted a rebellious heart. We take on our puny existence and throat-shove a curriculum of life according to our own terms. In order to survive, we hunt to kill.
There is no escape route for human depravity. God has given us the world we deserve. What we seek by way of bespoke passion invites God's wrath. When we are granted concession to live the way we desire: a true divine curse has just been granted.
It is with mere grace that I had been granted freedom. The foolishness of the message of the Cross did the hunting for my soul.
That is why, I can no longer prey on Gay.
I just pray.
Photography: Paolo Esquivel