Betting on a Fluke

I fall in love with you everyday,

your face is never the same,

nor is your body or hair,

or eyes or voice.

But I fall in love with you everyday,

maybe on the bus, maybe at the market

maybe in my own backyard.

There’s always one,

who I could see loving,

if the thing weren’t the thing.

Our eyes meet for a long moment,

but neither of us is blushing.

We exchange glances,

catch each other looking.

Her smile is a lure,

but she don’t know it.

I see a humble and peaceful girl,

when I look at her.

Cannot fantasize about holding,

tears begin to well,

lip begins to shake.

For I know the score,

I know my odds and I’m a long shot,

if there ever was one.

But I wouldn’t even look,

if I did not have hope.

Chemical Warfare

Pinks, Blues, Whites and Greens.

18 in the morning,

every morning.

Along with two injections to maintain my weight

It’s become a ritual, like an junkie with his fix.

Sometimes I vomit and have to do it over.

And this just keeps the beast on a leash.

14 years of ritualistic pill popping, I’ve learned to swallow them all, in one giant gulp, but I still gag,

every morning.

The feeling of isolation was enveloping,

there were pills for that, too

I felt fragile like a beach house in a hurricane at high tide.

A razor wire topped wall of my fear separates me from you,

fear of your judgement, of your words, of your ignorance.

I’m afraid to get too close ‘cause then I might have to explain.

so I come off cold and distant,

I’m afraid to make eye contact because you might see my pain,.

but I do it in an instant.

That may be as close as we get.

Living with HIV is harder than dying,

and I considered suicide daily

 After it put me in this wheelchair, turning me from an athlete into a cripple.

This wasn’t supposed to happen to me.

I was gonna be someone, do big things

But on November 8, 1998, an emergency room doctor diagnosed me.

My dreams were ripped away like a stolen emotion, before my eyes could shed a tear.

Afterward,  I felt liberated. From any expectation put upon me by family or society.

I wouldn’t live a scripted, played out existence of marriage, then children, always looking back at the good ‘ole days.

No, instead I would be alone and probably forever.

I was a drug addict so dying young didn’t phase me.

I did feel alone though, like I was dipped in wax, denied the ability to feel another persons touch ever again.

I wanted someone to hold but solitude possessed me and I was it’s star pupil going for his Masters Degree.

The drugs quit working and I felt trapped like a prisoner of war.

The euphoria didn’t rip my reality away anymore, no matter what or how much I did, I still felt contempt for myself.

I was forced to feel the fear, the anger and the depression that the drugs put on the shelf.

I worked the graveyard shift alone and slept all day.

I no longer wanted to socialize.

I felt transparent and didn’t want you to see what was going on inside.

I was silently weeping and sinking deeper into a torrent of depression.

One night I sat up with a fifth of cheap Tequila and a bottle of sleeping pills, in my apartment. Debating whether or not I really wanted to continue on. I didn’t, but couldn’t work up the nerve to finalize my decision.

I took a mouthful of pills but then spit them out.

I opened the bottle of Tequila, wiped away the tears and started doing shots with the sun as it began to rise.

It was a glowing red orb poking it’s head up from the dark horizon like a child playing hide-n-seek.

It continued to rise until everything was bathed in photons of light, casting long, cool shadows.

I could see the ocean and it’s glistening white caps from my window, so I went down to the beach.

I wrote my troubles in the sand and watched the tide drag them into the sea.

The ocean air cleared my head like a leaf blower and altered my perspective but nothing could change the fact that I had this virus and it wasn’t going anywhere.

And it’s alive and well out here too, even though it’s only spoken of in hushed tones.

It’s considered a manageable disease now but it takes a lot of energy, dedication and a strong stomach.

It’s not a gay disease; It’s not a straight disease,

It’s an equal opportunity killer.

Why is it a tragedy when someone gets cancer but a travesty when they’re diagnosed with AIDS?

Men and Women are suffering and dying in silence because they’re afraid of being ostracized by their family and friends.

And you are in NO danger of getting infected unless we have sex.

Not by hand holding, not by the toilet seat and not even by saliva.

But I am in danger of catching whatever you have and have it develop into something deadly. So erase the stigma.

And it only takes one error in judgement, the person you met at the club that looked healthy, a desperate moment when you’re going through withdrawals and share a needle,

And then you’re done.

Relegated to a life dependent on bottle after bottle of anti-viral medication, meds for the side effects and meds for your depression.

Staying healthy is a full time job when you are HIV positive.

So,

Be afraid, be smart,

where a fucking condom and get tested.

I don't know if I'm a poet

I don’t know if I’m a poet

I never tell anyone that I’m a poet.

For me, that’s something that people call you not something you claim.

I don’t talk about writing and if someone looks over my shoulder,

I will get belligerent.

“How dare you steal these blood soaked words with your greedy eyes and sour breath, don’t you have a trend to follow or a lie to tell?”

Poetry is intensely personal for me,

and if I want to share a poem with you, I will recite it through smoke rings and a sandpaper throat until I can see the emotion I felt when I wrote it, on your face.

If I’m gonna bleed, I want it to count.

No casual references to heavy, tear-filled lines I wrote while knee deep in handed down sorrow.

There will be no free bees.

I don’t know if I’m a poet but these words were hot coals burning me up from the inside, and to recite them,

not just write them,

sets me free.

That’s why I don’t read poetry.

I’d rather watch it.

I mean, how can I know how you felt when you caught your lover cheating after losing your baby, without looking into your eyes.

The word “joy” means nothing, but seeing the look on a child’s face at Christmas as he opens his first gift, is more than the word.

I won’t claim I’m a poet but rather a writer.

I love it; so much that I used to write with spray cans, my plea’s to the universe, and the government, on county property only.

NO, I don’t know if I’m a poet, yet

But I do know that if I sit with my laptop, my pen, my self, long enough

a valve opens up and words seep out of me like prayers to a God on vacation.

I give credit to my muse for the inspiration to sit with my laptop until 4 in the morning, writing.

I can’t explain the process because I haven’t got it figured out,

All I know is that it is better than any drug because it’s redeeming.

I stopped writing for a while because I lost my nerve,

my confidence, my focus.

When I got it back I found that my muse was right there,

Beckoning me to come back.

I write to be of service to her, to give her a mortal voice,

to sing her song.

Family Tradition

My grandmother committed suicide with a 32 caliber revolver.

The police said she must have read up on it,

because she knew just where to put the bullet,

severing her spinal cord.

My mother took it hardest but the rest of us understood,

Grandma was in a lot of pain.

And whatever pills they gave her made her dizzy.

but that was before.

My grandmother committed suicide with a 32 caliber revolver,

And I sit here now in this chair because HIV attacked my spinal cord,

while I lay in the hospital comatose from pneumonia.

Months after my diagnosis I was told that I had 18 months to live,

because I didn't want to take the "cocktail" of horse pills like a puppet.

I take them now, 14 years later, because of my late mother.

But rendering me a cripple in a wheelchair was the icing on the cake.

The final straw that broke the camels back.

This had me asking, why? Why me? Wasn't I handling AIDS properly?

It's a lesson I didn't know I needed to learn, but I'm down.

AIDS has walled me in socially,

Shut me down emotionally,

and turned me off sexually,

I'm scared, angry.

alone.

But my grandmother committed suicide with a 32 caliber revolver.

and she had books like The Power of Positive Thinking and Dianetics

Her degenerated disks tossed those pages into the fire of contempt

But to make that decision to load the bullets into the Smith and Wesson,

one to make sure it worked and one for the job at hand,

then put that steel on the back of her neck and drop the hammer.

THAT TOOK GUTS.

Her suicide note simply read "I can't live like this anymore."

I have days when I think I can't go on.

When the morning pills make me vomit.

And the muscle spasms in my legs are like electric pulses from an overcharged battery

and that's when I think of Grandma,

but I'm not there quite yet,

I'm still addicted to tomorrow.

my grandmother committed suicide with a 32 caliber revolver

and my family understood that she was suffering,

and that's good because I don't intend to suffer either.