22/03/2026
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ | ๐๐ ๐๐๐ฆ๐จ๐ซ๐๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐
"๐๐จ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง๐ฌ ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐๐ซ"
Nobody told me.
It was a secret.
But it needs to unravel.
I learned while growing that holiness has its sound. It is the quiet murmur of prayers recited without pause, the scrape of rosary marbles in someoneโs hands, and the bell that rings not to warn but to call. In our house, faith is not only practicedโit was lived, taken like oxygen, enforced like a law. The saints we worship watch over us like policemen; their glances follow our movement as if to remind us that we exist not for ourselves, but for them.
I belonged to this world before I even knew how to question it. I began raising my hands, lifting my voice, and praying for other people. Everyone knew I was safe and sound here, protected by scriptures, wrapped in devotion. What they do not know, or maybe what they chose not to see, is that this same sanctuary is the furnace that slowly burns me.
There are deaths that do not require wake and coffins. Mine happened quietly. Each time I swallowed questions of correction, lowered my voice when it sounded too soft, and corrected my hands when they moved too freely. I tried to calm my heart as it throb whenever a dashing man walks past me. I was forced to chain myself, blindfold my eyes, and follow the light that leads me somewhereโbut it is away from what I want. It is not what I want, it is what they want.
The church prays for lost souls.
At home, they pray for salvation.
But no one ever prays for acceptance.
I realized then that grief has its rules. You mourn the sinner who turned away from sins, those believers who left and returned, the body that dies faithful. But there are no rituals for the q***r who survives. No one hugged a child who accepted his fate at a young age. No one pitied the teenager who endured punches and bruises simply for loving pink Barbie dolls. And no one offered a prayer for a q***r who already lost their life while still breathing.
No one mourns the q***r, because to mourn me would just mean you admit that I bleed.
And holiness, as you insist, never bleeds.
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Literary by Jan Rei Halili
Art by Russel Guntang
Layout by Robb Gabriel Basco
