These my two hands / quick to slap my face / before others could slap it.

To survive the Borderlands you must live sin fronteras be a crossroads.

Though we tremble before uncertain futures may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength may we dance in the face of our fears.

The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian--our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the "real" world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.

The act of writing is the act of making soul, alchemy.

My 'awakened dreams' are about shifts. Thought shifts, reality shifts, gender shifts: one person metamorphoses into another in a world where people fly through the air, heal from mortal wounds. I am playing with my Self, I am playing with the world's soul, I am the dialogue between my Self, and el espirítu del mundo. I change myself, I change the world.

Books saved my sanity, knowledge opened the locked places in me and taught me first how to survive and then how to soar.