Queer, Poz and Colored: The Essentials

At least once a day, I hear a piece of news that makes my blood boil and sends me into a nearly apoplectic rage. Usually it has something to do with injustice, hate, ignorance, willful stupidity, fear and violence against the vulnerable. Rarely do I have a personal connection to the story. Today, I do, and the story is so horrific that I am committed to supporting justice. No one attacks my community and gets to walk away from their acts of violence.

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Last night, I read my poem H-I-ME for the second time in public. The last time was a year ago, the day that I wrote it, and after completely breaking down and sobbing my way through that performance, I set it aside. Over the last year, I have either chosen to face or been force to face some of the realities of living with HIV. I have made good choices and bad choices, and I have had to sit with some very hard moments. Last night, when I read the poem, I didn't break down. Let's be real, by the end of the poem by entire body was shaking, I felt exposed and vulnerable, and I wanted to bolt from the room. Instead, I had to pull up a chair and face a half an hour of questions and comments from the audience during a facilitated panel.

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There are those moments in life when an individual opens up his mouth and something so far beyond ridiculous and inappropriate comes out that your first and immediate reaction is to start looking for hidden cameras. As the crazy continues you may even begin to wonder about your own insanity or eyeball your cocktail in an effort to figure out if perhaps you've been roofied and are about to pass out and wake up in a trailer park on the outskirts of Weehawken.

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From 2001 to 2003 I served as the first chair of the National Lavender Green Caucus of the Green Party of the United States. Each year, I wrote an open letter to the queer community during Pride in which I exhorted folks to engage politically and do their part to create positive social change. It was the beginning of the Bush era, 9/11 went down very shortly after I became chair (and our Caucus was the FIRST queer political organization to come out against any retaliatory war), Ralph Nader was not a joke, and no one had even heard of American Idol. I was also HIV negative.

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One of my favorite songs by Salt-n-Pepa was featured in the opening credits of Too Wong Foo Thanks For Everything Julie Newmar: "Body Beautiful." It's a song about loving your body and who you are without taking on the body image baggage of the world. With queer men suffering from body dysmorphism and eating disorders at the same rates experienced by women, I have more than a passing familiarity with the need to love one's body. Though I have never struggled with eating disorders (other than the disorder of loving to eat all the damn time), I have always struggled with body image.

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Let me go on ahead and give a testimonial up in this piece for a minute. I am a recovering meth addict. And while there was an element early on, back in the late 90s, when I was bedazzled by the glam party boys at the club, my meth addiction had nothing to do with that. Meth came later, post HIV, and my meth addiction had everything to do with the mind blowing numbing power of the drug, the power of the drug to let me feel beautiful, wanted, loved, in control, powerful ... for as long as the high lasted, I was Superman and all the bull shit of the world just bounced off of my chest.

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It is my hope that My Feet Only Walk Forward is a not only a vehicle for my own special moments (aka rantings, musings, and emotional vomit ... see the footer below ... it even says so ...), but I also hope that this blog is challenges folks; helps folks think through their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs; sheds light on some of the ways in which the world works; promotes and highlights amazing artists, organizers, performs and their work; and helps connect people to one another through the inter-webs (please note connects PEOPLE to one another ... not people to computer monitors). As I am approaching my 500th blog entry here at My Feet Only Walk Forward, and as I have looked back over the last three years of this blog, I have noticed, with much love and pride, that this blog is becoming more and more of the things I hope it will be. I appreciate all of you that have brought your work to my attention, have suggested blog topics, have shown me love, and have used what you have found here in your own work. From classrooms to audition monologues, My Feet Only Walk Forward has gone places I never dreamed it would go when I posted my first blog three years ago this month. Thank you to all of you that have supported this work.

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It's been a while since I wrote anything for my poz family and for the folks at TheBody.com. This evening, as I was waiting for the pizza from Two Boots to arrive, I decided to check out the information on StatCounter about my main blog, myfeetonlywalkforward.blogspot.com, and I came across a link to a site called Nurse Tips. Nurse Tips has listed "Queer, Poz, and Colored: The Essentials," as one of their top 50 blogs about HIV/AIDS.

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I believe in miracles. I believe that miracles come in two forms: those seemingly impossible happenings that can not be explained because the science has yet to be developed to explain them and those truly mysterious events that defy science, logic, rational thought and, sometimes, even hope.

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I live with HIV
I have been a part-time junkie
Trying to find something I missed
In between overachieving and the point of a needle
People generally look at me like I am lying
By trying to tell them I am recovering
And some days much less recovered than others
My Mother couldn't believe that her Straight-A-Beaver-Cleaver
Would cleave to whatever he could snort or swallow or fit in a needle
Powders and pills devouring the pain of little red ribbons
T-Cell Counts and technical knock outs by Chelsea boy faggots
That see only a status
It might mess with their A List adventure if they fall for a retroviral warrior
Rejecting gentlemanly advances as if being asked to marry a leper
All the while playing jeopardy
Take a hit and then split in half/open wide to let the next big raw cock inside
You see Don't Ask Don't Tell is all very well in a fairy tale where in
Your sexual health is someone else's responsibility
Silly me, I thought when I saw your ass bubble cum like a champagne fountain that you had made a decision

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