lou

...My friend Lou wanted to speak to our school but he died of AIDS before he could. He would be the first to tell teens to practice safe sex and use condoms. He would have told you it's not worth it. People often assume he was a drug addict but he wasn't, he never was. His body was quickly deteriorating before my very eyes, my very chance to mobilize and memorize. My very chance to standardize this very sterile environment. He gave me an enlightenment, an entitlement of non-embarrassment for who I was. Although he constantly had shivers down his spine, although he constantly went on an unauthentic cloud nine, although he constantly seemed to have no bloodline he always fought against the frontline, the guideline, the headline, and the land mine of his heartbeat. I remember meeting him, I remember learning that wrinkles don’t always translate into ‘’old’’, I remember learning that just because there’s oxygen doesn’t mean you can always breathe it. I remember learning that just because there’s a heartbeat doesn’t mean there’s life. I remember learning that just because punches are thrown doesn’t mean there’s a fight. I remember the whip; I remember the grip, the cleft lip, the pink slip, the battleship and the bullshit sportsmanship. So let’s watch the airship, the guilt trip, the slave ship, and our stonewall. Because our plague kills over a million people every year and has infected 37 million. Our lives are taken over by fear, by the frontier. Because we disappear in the crystal clear holy year. We disappear in the religiously, traditionally morbidly industry. From the pills that don’t work, to the denial of treatment in the south. What have we become? We have become, we have become undone, we have outrun our own roots. Because our roots are connected to the drug abuse, to the dirty needles that he never used. He was bruised, unapproved and abused. He was treated like a cheated, heated, depleted and a deleted man. He was a mistreated, mentally untreated sick man. He was a man trapped within a stigma trapped within HIV. So next time, I'll be Baynard while he can be Harvey, we'll be all the great gay rights activists who should be but aren't taught about in school. Next time, He'll be more than just a joke, next time, He'll be more than just a stereotype...Next time, next time he'll be more than just a virus.