I wanna speak
Something
Pretty with prose
Confession
Regression
About
Ugly and truthful
Real
Personal
Pandemic
Shit
Wrap words around
A story
A telling
Of a life
A life story
One
Rose-up
Through ashes
Not a Phenix
Not a myth
Not a martyr
Just a man
A boy
X
Y
Trash born
A baby
A thought
Worth having
Or maybe not
Accidents
Happen
Fallouts
Happen
Gaps grow
Needing knowing
Giving form
That’s a life
Worth reading
Seeing
Being
Gonna go backward
Forward
Nonlinear
Ahead
Forward
Always only
Forward
Who knows
Nobody
Futures constant calling
56 accumulated
Sun rotations
Tapping out
Single words
Entire
Thoughts
Open
Ended
Two plagues
Inn
Survived
So far
Bringing me
Here
Once
Home
Once
More
Once
time
Gray day shouting
Drops pelting
Windy City
Unsettled
Like my head
A scattering
Splattering
Mash-up
Remembrances
Slippery memories
Hold
Then slither
Rise again
Fall asunder
And then resurface
Panic
Call
Waves and rain
Splatter, crash, spit
Drowning
Deafening
Headspace
Yesterdays
Todays
Tomorrows
Life measures in love
And loves loss
Is’ ent that how it's done
Not days
Retaining walls
Hopefully holding
Getting
To the point
A beginning
Death Sentenced
Is how it began
Framed by bodies
Souls gone missing
An epic disappearance
Of mostly men
Barley men
Just past boyhood
Within boyhood
Predominately gay
Transgendered
Homosapien
Homos
Queers
Freaks
Queens
Trans
Taken
Prime of life
Wiped off the face of the earth
Infected
H
I
V
A virus
Positive
Plagued away
Shamed
To death
Even as they lay waiting
Knowing
Unknown
Gay cancer
They called it
Inevitable ending
Untouchable
Quarantined
A ward
A separate wing
Isolated
Their hearts
Rapidly
Weakening
Beating alone
Until not
Abandoned
Emptied of life
Bodies of men
Who loved men
Zipped into body bags
Gone forever gone
Years and Years
Of fucking fear
Sucking fear
Kissing fear
Touching fear
Holding fear
Where a body should have been nestled
Loving
Loveless
Loved less
Love lost
Loves potential
Ghosted
A void
Evermore
Singular
In a coupled world
We didn’t matter
The infected
Diseased
With
A
I
D
S
Faggots
Worthless
Declared
Right
Religious
White men
White women
Pulpited
Radical breeders
Hatred inducing
Fevered
Infectious
Christians
Self-declared
Vessels of the light
mind polluters
Hate speechers
Hate teaching
Self-possessed
So-called
Righteous
Men and women of Christ
Backward
Non-thinking
Teaching
Preaching
Converting
Christ’s Love language
Re-written
In their
Ugly
Hatred
Likeness
Their supremacy
Of divisiveness
Whiteness
Who’s clarion call
Declared
God’s will
Be done
Populations
Ate
It
Up
Still supping
Bullshit
Hatred won
Still winning
Everybody
Bought in
Hive
Inherited
Established
FEAR
FEAR
FEAR
FEAR
FEAR
Filthy
Butt fucking fags
Should die
Yep that’s what they preached
God’s will be done
Sodomite
Vilified
Nasty men
Perverts
Pedophiles
Lumped into one sum
Gays
Deserving of death
That is what the press reported
Every headline
Repeated words printed
Airwaves filled
Televised
Sound bites
Over and over
Same story
Built a case
Guilty
Perverts
Untouchable
Deserved
Diseased
Justified
Vengeful
God
Just image
Psychological
Psycho
Babel
Brain warping
Heart collapsing
Soul dividing
Justified
Hatred
Disgust
Judgment
That reached
Everyone
Everyone
Everyone
Everywhere
My self
Included
I’m gonna say it again
My self
Included
That’s
T
R
A
U
M
A
I’m wearing it
Stitch into my soul
Quilted
Patch-worked
Remember
The pieces
Assembled
Into one remembrance
A gigantic quilt
Carpeted
The National Mall
Political
Pandemic
A cozy look
Didn’t soften
The sobs
Dry wet eyes
Return
The unreturnable
Splitting seems
The weight of sorrow
Holding in
Held within
My
B
O
D
Y
Always caressing
Them
All
Their names
Stitched together
Letters
Chained
Sequenced
D
N
A
Linked
One to the other
The infected
Uninfected
The dis-ease
Of disease
Infects everyone
C
O
V
I
D
Taught the planet
What
A
I
D
S
Tutored
Lesson
Viruses
Are plural
Global
Get it
Infections
Are mental
First
Physical
Second
Nobody
Is immune
Just veering
Degrees
Of dissociation
Denial
Gay’s being a minority
Didn’t matter much
No matter what
Your make-up
If caught
A virus
Devastatingly
Transmitted
Through intimacy
A one-night stand
Lovemaking
Friendly Fucking
Casual sex
Fluids
Exchanged
Needles
Between men
Between women
Between Trans
Yes it happens
Really happens
Still Happening
A president
Called Regan
Couldn’t
Wouldn't
Say the word
A
I
D
S
And then
Nothing
Everything
Was ever the same
Fear filled inn
Every space
Every gap
Every breath
Every touch
Every possibility
Un-became
Once boys
Once men
Once lover
Once friends
Once family
Once no more
At present
More than 700,000 people
Gone
That is what a plague does
Removes people
Planet washing
Indiscriminately
Has not stopped
Nor the stigma
Of being Positive
Feel how
Something
Inside
Become
Uncomfortable
When heard
Try saying
A million times
To a million minds
I’m positive
Rejection
Rejection
Rejection
Shut down
Do not advance
Red light
Red light
Red light
Walk away
Take away
Your heart
Your body
Shut it down
No attraction
Get away
Save your self
From the
Diseased
But wait
It’s only me
I’m still here
Can’t you see
Me
I’m undetectable
Strange how parts of words work
UN = Not
What part of me is missing
That I became not detectable
My first pandemic
Not so long ago
Still
Here
Not alone
We
Survivors
Traumatized
Before
Trauma
Counted
The parts
Not measured
Unimaginable
How living life
Stops
How being
Romantically loved
Stops
When death sentenced
A decade
Spent
Popping
Experimental
Pills
Waiting
For the knock
Deaths calling card
Going to the edger
T-cells mostly gone
Full-blown
No defense
Cancerous spots
dappled dermas
Chemoed
To kill
New title
Disabled
Doctor said it had to be so
I sign the paperwork
Deliriously dying
Terminal Illness
Government assisted
Poor
There was no other way
Deadly health is costly
It’s a fortune
Passing
Slowly
Patiently
I waited
A decade
Being disabled
Fully abled
Stalled
As others advanced
Different pills
Different side affect
Same Trauma
Same shame
Life moved
Forward
I waited
To die
A decade
Lost
Pills multiple
A
Z
T
Killers
Lost their plural
Became one
Side effects
None
A decade
Came and went
Then downgraded
Chronic illness
A Bush president
A government move
Change the language
Status changed
Loss the label
Disabled no more
Taken to court
Me versus the US government
The accusation
Fraud
Faked Illness
Bush’s court
Accused me of faking
A
I
D
S
Wanted
Payback
Thankfully
A white man
A crabby Judge
Appointed to his position
Read my labs
Maybe
I don’t know
I wasn’t allowed to speak
Only listen
Passing judgment
Is always one sided
White man's rules
Laws
His judgment
His rulings
My life
Innocent
Found Innocent
Strange phrase
Found Innocent
A lost decade
Of Life
Diseased Disabled
Unretrievable
The hours spent
Tormented
Waiting
Death sentenced
To be found
Innocent
Still infected
Still diseased
Still
More
Traumatized
But Innocent
The verdict
His judgment
Passed down
Always down
It goes
Shit flushed
Hellbound
Down Down Down
To Earth
Dying
One day at a time
Every body
Is doing it
One disease at a time
Viruses
Come and go
Through people
All people
Monkey Pox included
The ones yet to be named too
And they are coming
Coming soon
To the living planet
Most near to you
Who’ll be
Next
Lepers
Black Plague
Outbreak
Epidemic
Pandemic
You know
I know
We know
People
Could be you
Could be me
We are all infected
By
L
I
F
E
Why confess
Now?
I’ve reach
Meaning
Beyond my guilt and shame
Though I carried it
It was not mine
Remember I’m innocent
Our government
Declared it
Bullshit
I was never guilty
In the first place
Humans are small-minded and cruel
Equal to their brilliance
AIDS aroused Fear
Fear amplified hatred
Hatred caused divisiveness
Human Nature?
All I know is what I lived
Translatable
Transferable
Noncommunicable
Transformational
Awareness
Having
survived
Plagues
Nearly
Fearless
Compassionate
Amplifying
Love
Alive
Present
No longer
Waiting