I attempt to document the immorality of Xanax but the only evidence is a kooky fortune teller who reads my chai tea leaves and tells me I’m wasting my time.
I agree.
I think of him in California on some app naked and hunting for affirmation of his desirability – giving his attractiveness a score equal to the number of dick pics he receives.
Will he thank them with blowjobs?
I don’t think he would cheat but of course I never expect him to lie.
And why carry naked pictures on a mobile device if you don’t intend to share them?
I’ve seen things that I shouldn’t… or should I have?
My inner I is cloudy / wounded / bloody.
The red tears fall and lubricate my way to the future.
In Chechnya, gay men like me are tortured while I’m riding a bicycle for the first time in nine years.
I’m racing downtown along the Hudson River…. just like Michigan childhood, yet decidedly different, feeling simultaneously young and very old; muscles aching, blood pumping.
I have to eat soon and all of this must end.
Coffee in Lincoln Square? Lincoln Center? Lincoln somewhere. Mingling with opera singers; this is my life now. This, while those in Mother Russia who survived the purge of A.I.D.S. have been incarcerated by an astonishing ignorance, in a war they can not hope to win.
We are not wayward heterosexuals. We are born; not converted. And it is those that hate and fear us so much who are responsible for our creation.
The only FAGGOTS I’ve ever met were conservative terrifying assholes.
Conservative or Liberal… at least our assholes seem to match.
Haunted night is filled with fairy ghosts of candles burnt forty-three years endless summer days and countless aching seconds before they sang!
The ash of memory collects / connects / coalesces between a dreamed of future and the year before my own birth.
Music plays, dancers sway, Listen now to what they have to say… Feel the truth of an imagined confession.
Now you know that art is magic, alive and tragic, raving, righteous & tempestuous somehow… that is what you know in the now but back in the then before the circuit could complete – before you finished kiss so sweet – the fire spread as coward fled.
Showering after sex my mind is overcome by thoughts, sensations, memories.
“Call Me by Your Name” has reminded me of Rob – the way he made a pass at me when I was 17 – the way I reacted and the way I’ve often wished I could change that moment – erase it, rewrite it, never experience that level of self loathing born of inexperience… that impression of what I lack.
Still… kissing at church has to count for something.
My conversation with young relative returns; how I tried to calm his fears on Trump and AIDS and love and sex. It only takes one time, you know?
A boy I knew who worked on Fire Island died of an “infection” a few weeks ago – life support turned off –
INFECTION FIRE ISLAND GAY DEATH
The words that silently scream at me what I believe to be the cause while everyone politely refuses to mention what has happened… And the band continues to play on.
Men I’ve been inside of, Men who’ve been inside of me are positive.
Best friends, Loved ones, Infected but seldom mentioned because an illness is easily the least interesting thing about them.
I think of Aaron and the tears he shed and the words he said and the progress he confirmed… the wonderful weekends we’ve had.
I think about upcoming hearing while trying not to face it with terror or worry while the video they’re supposed to send me has never arrived (three times).
But the shower must end and scalding hot water must cease it’s spray.
And so I dry myself – step back into the world and I forget.
The Christmas tree is the heart of the season, and when I was a child it filled me with reason, to hope and to play those holiday games; sledding down hills and chasing toy trains… But at night I would creep with my family asleep, out to the tree and I’d wish on that star… And I never knew, that my wish would come true, but I knew when I met your son outside that bar… And then I met you and I couldn’t have known, the way that you’d change me with the love that you’ve shown, and I give you this symbol of the gifts that you’ve given, with it’s sweet Christmas spirit and it’s packages hidden by the wrappings you love, that bright coded vestige, But let me explain this Christmas themed message.
Red is for love… Blue means forever… Green and Gold for our times spent together, With a star overhead to show us the way, and to always remind you come each Christmas day, of the lives that you’ve changed with gifts that are tasteful, the time that you give which has never been wasteful, the presents you share while remaining so graceful… May this Christmas gift serve to show you I’m grateful, for all that you’ve done and all that you do… And may all of your wishes wished upon it come true.
The pained expression as he wrapped his arms around his head, as if to hide from the words he knew he must say; the risk he must take.
The tears that fell from his beautiful eyes as he confessed that the heart of us had been lost.
The strength that I had never possessed in the past, unfamiliar as it surged to the fore…
Was it possible that I had built a temple out of my shattered childhood only to have him ripped away from me?
The way we barely breathed as we collapsed in random bursts of suffering, exquisite, aching pain of love gone wrong, gone sour, gone ignored too long and now barely recognizable.
We lay together that night, together, yet cleaved in two.
Yet we never degraded, never cursed, never accused, never, never, never completely surrendered to shame or fear.
This hardship, this torment was honest and brave, and long overdue; I know that now and I thank him even as I yearn for my other half.
For 10 days and 11 nights I have fought for the mere hope, the slightest chance that a lost romance might be resurrected.
I don’t want to be crushed by the loss of him or bereft of his touch.
I fight for my own survival with lessons that may save me, yet beyond myself I yearn for the forgotten look in his eyes, the curve of his lips, the taste of his joy, satisfaction, surprise and that virginal lust for passions met in kind.
I want to give him what in ignorance I have so long denied him, he that I treasure most, he that I cherish above all others.
His need, his confession, his longing has inspired a sea change within me.
And if he might only look there in my culpable remorseful eyes, perhaps he will find what it is that he can no longer find on his own.
With every glance I seek to say:
I am here. And I love you. And I am in love with you. And I curse the day that I ever made you feel you weren’t worthy of my best.
I will extend myself to the best of my ability, beyond what I have done for any other love, any other lover, any other man, woman, parent or friend.
This I swear with a glad heart.
For you have made me a better man, and a greater man than you would be an impossible quest that I would never dream of or wish to accept.
Find me Aaron. Find me.
I am waiting in the dark to lead us into the light.
For nearly four years I’ve shared my bed with my boyfriend / partner / lover: Aaron L. Sanko.
We don’t always go to bed at the same time, yet there are almost always a few hours of crossover, usually in the early morning hours.
In that blissful time when sunlight begins to penetrate our darkened sanctuary, and the alarm insists that it is time we disengage from our nightly maneuvers, we refuse to be separated… sometimes to our peril; we find ourselves caught in what Aaron first christened:
The Trap
This entrapment occurs as we drift in and out of slumber, desperately enmeshed in one another, when the world tries to call us away, and we realize we want only to be together this way: naked, entwined, united, protected and completed.
“It took me hours to get out of The Trap this morning.”
But while “the trap” is a nice little wink and a nod, an in-joke, a reference between lovers… which certainly describes those moments that we cherish… I find it amusingly ironic that this seemingly sinister state we find ourselves in is truly an honest contradiction…
For it’s when I find myself entrapped by Aaron’s loving arms that I feel we are the most free.