I've got to start giving myself a lot more credit. I've done an awesome job of surviving with my wits about me in world that has gone fucking insane about HIV/AIDS.On any given day, I can go online and talk to black gay Americans, white gay Americans, brown gay Americans and yellow gay Americans who fear me so much, they spend an awful lot of their time and energy banishing me from their lives, and doing so in the most cruel and insensitive ways.
Today, a black gay man told me I look like I have HIV/AIDS, which makes me less attractive in his eyes. What kind of thoughtless person tells me something like this?
Most gay Americans separate themselves from me with their online language, calling themselves clean and disease-free. They put up signs on the internet, warning me to stay away (because I'm dirty and
disease-ridden). They couldn't care less about my feelings. They couldn't care less about safe sex with the HIV-positive. They couldn't care less about HIV/AIDS and those that carry it. They don't even want to know how not to acquire the virus. They just want it to stay away from them, so much so that they've made me an AIDS Monster.But I'm not an AIDS Monster. I'm a brilliant, brave, bright shining light. I know that viruses are much more than destroyers of dreams and life. I know that I, myself, am much more than a destroyer of dreams and life. Yet I live in a world that fears me, doesn't want to understand me, doesn't want to talk to me, doesn't even want me to exist.
And still, I shall be here, a brilliant, brave, bright shining light. This is my movie and it is not a horror flick. I'm better than that. Here's to me for being so much better than that.
