The journalist and poet looks back on a life marked by suicide attempts, family grief and the difficulty of living his sexual orientation freely — an experience he has turned into a book to help other people
Natalio Cruz Duque, journalist, teacher, poet and pregonero (opening speaker) of Pride 2026 in Tazacorte, visited the Love TV studio to talk openly about mental health, precariousness and survival. Born in Tijarafe, he has transformed his own scars into a self-published poetry collection that is already close to a thousand copies sold — a testimony born, as he explains, of the desire to help others not to feel alone.
The book did not come from a plan, but from a need. “Those poems appeared the way one breathes”, Natalio explains, although he admits that before publishing them he asked himself many times how he would be treated from then on. Behind those verses lies a story marked by suicide attempts, addictions within his family circle, the loss of two brothers and years spent trying to fit into a family that did not always know how to support him in his sexual orientation. “I have known what I am since I was born”, he states, while acknowledging that one’s environment often forces repression.
Far from dwelling on the pain, Natalio insists that his story is not unique. People write to him from Colombia, from Venezuela, from different corners where his message has struck a chord. And that is where his book finds its meaning: in the certainty that sharing one’s own wound can become a refuge for someone else. “When people trust you enough to tell you they have lived through something similar, you discover that there are people around you suffering in silence”, he reflects.
The journalist also used the interview to talk about the current moment of the LGTBIQ+ community, both in La Palma and beyond. For him, progress is being made, but slowly. “Those who walked before us made the path for us”, he recalls, referring to those who fought so that equal marriage exists in Spain today — an achievement that is still pending in many other countries.
As for when this fight will no longer be necessary, he is clear: “When we no longer have to do this kind of interview to give importance to something that already has it”.
Natalio did not shy away from the most recent news either: the situation Venezuela is going through, a country with which La Palma maintains a historic two-way bond. For him, pride is not limited to equality for the community. “Pride is also helping those people”, he says, convinced that social struggles should not walk separately.
The pregonero of Orgullo Chiquito 2026 also paid tribute to two historic references of the town of Tazacorte: the painter Cándido Camacho, whose work mixed art and homosexuality in a pioneering way in the 1970s and 1980s, and Gregorio Barreto, linked to the world of drag and the island’s beauty pageants. “How could a Pride celebrated in Tazacorte not be a source of pride?”, he argued, recalling how difficult it was for many to live their identity on the island in those decades.
In one of the verses of his poetry collection ‘He querido morir tantas veces’ (‘I Have Wanted to Die So Many Times’), full of emotion, the poet shared during the interview a fragment that sums up his way of understanding other people’s pain as his own, together with a message addressed to young people who are still afraid to show themselves as they are. “Each person decides when to open up”, said Natalio, “but once you decide to be yourself, you live more at peace”.