Empty Room

It becomes difficult to draw the line
Between mourning all of the deaths
And celebrating all of the new lives
Inside
My life
You have every right to miss me
During my transition
I have no right to wonder why you do
I miss me too
And most of all I miss you
And how safe we felt together
But if it helps at all
I've come to realize
That just like other people
Can drink and smoke pot and not
Hurt themselves
But I cannot
Maybe other people can be loved
And not hurt themselves somehow with that
But just for now
I cannot.
Anything that feels good
Can be bad.
What if I am healing from you, too?
It's crazy I know you didn't
Do anything wrong at all
But picture me clearing it all out
Having a fire sale on things that make me feel good
Drugs, sex, and even fitness...and you.
And then there I am alone in a room
just
Just me
In a room
Outside you sit confused
But I'm just there in a room
And all I have is me
I'm not feeling good
I don't feel bad
I'm just honest and alone
Evaluating
Someday soon I'll maybe put in some windows
And drapes and
I'll paint
And I'll move some things back in
I'll decide where they
Fit
Best. I'll decide
A lot of things
I know you miss me
I miss you too
I'm sorry about everything
How it all got so cluttered
You can come back in
Eventually
But please
Its
Just me
In here
For now. 

Prayer For Instead

From my very first decision to get sober....

God.
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
Grant me the serenity
To accept the Meth
To say the word
To accept the gang-bangs with drug dealers
Caught on film somewhere on the Internet
That punctuation at the end of a run on sentence
That began with a capital M
For Molestation at the beginning of my life
Allow me the peace to accept y HIV positive status
To see the positive in that status
To accept my HIV
As I have accepted the freckles, moles, uni-brows
And homosexuality in my life
Allow me the heart with enough need for love
That I can love my HIV because it is now
And forever will be a part of myself
Because I just love myself, one day, that much
That I wrap my arms around this disease
And welcome it int my family, regardless
Let me hug my HIV, God.
Allow me to love my body that much
Help me to feel united with the countless
Gay visionaries
The angels of the past who have
Died of AIDS
Help me to heal
And finally say
I’m sorry
I’m sorry that they died because of what they
Did not know
I’m sorry I chose to ignore what they
Died trying to tell me
And love myself enough to still feel
Part of that band of angels
Because I am a gay
Artist with HIV
Not just another
But indeed another
And help me see that we
Don’t just have
A disease in common
Help me see
That we
Are all sent here
With a message
Allow me to accept myself
And my past
That much
All of it.
Please.
The things I cannot change
Let me love them instead
God grant me the serenity to accept
The things I cannot change
And the courage to change
The things I can
Please God give me that strength
And start by letting me brave enough
To sit down and talk to myself
Because as crazy at it seems
After all the millions of hours I have spent
In my life
Chatting, gossiping, rambling, and shooting the shit
With other people
It will take a real and certain strength
I know
To finally sit down
Cut the shit
And talk
To myself
Help me to stop hating myself
And begging for everyone to fix me
Long enough to gather the courage
To love myself
And ask, instead, for someone
To help me
Help me stop worrying
What will happen
And start wondering
What will happen
Instead
God, give me the gusto
To sleep homeless if I need to
In park alone with my consequences
And accept them as my own
Allow me the vision to
See responsibility as a key to freedom
And not as a cage of punishment
Help me see what I did wrong
And what I’ve done right
With the same clarity
Help me finally stop focusing on myself
Inside of a friendship or a relationship
And instead focus on myself
Inside of a room alone
Help me fill that lonely, ugly room
With comfy furniture and unconditional love
God grant me the serenity to accept
The things I cannot change
The courage to change
The things I can
And the wisdom
To know the difference
Because right now it all just seems
Like the same to me
But I know I want to know
Someday
What it means to love my past
Because it is already
And to love my present
Because of what I do
Help me organize this messy, lonely room
Just me and you
And while I talk to myself in love
As I put away this stuff
Feel free to join in my
Conversation.
Amen.

Every Poor Rhyme

7 days a week

I seek

To sleep

In your arms

Your charms

Wrapping me

In a sea

Of doves

Of love

From above

So hug

Me

Please

And squeeze

My pieces

Back togetherForever

The Moon Apologized

The moon apologized for being there

When I was raped

And described to me the terror

Of having to not only watch

But provide the light

Like a father forced to hold the lantern

While someone rapes his daughter

The moon apologized to me

Though it didn't need to

I accepted

You Tell Me

You tell me where to go

From here

Because I've never been there before

I've never seen life outside of

What I cannot have

You stand there

And turn around

And yell out to me

What you see

So I can know what to look for

What does it look like to live

Inside of success

Tell me there is a bench out there

With room for me

Next to you

And I will follow

Your promises

Until I can take off

This blindfold

Break In My Hands

Sing me a song




With such a delicate sound




That it could break in my hands




And help me keep it together

While You Lie Sleeping

While you lay sleeping next to me

I think of protecting you

Because you finally gave me

The last leg up I needed

To see myself as strong enough

To protect someone

And the first person I chose

To look after was you

So here I lay

While you sleep

And I wrap us both in light

And I call upon every last God that

Has ever been a part of my life

To join me

And I see your guardians and

Your guides

And your spirit animals

I see your light

And my own

And my protectors

My guides

My angels

And all of it

All of them

All of us

Are circling this blessed bed we

Lay on together

And filling this place with so much light that

I cannot sleep through it

I bat away your nightmares

And dissolve my doubts

Certain that your protection

Is more important than my sleep

You leave me tomorrow

For the other side of the country

But you don't ever leave me

And I will always be there

In your light

Giving you mine

Surrounding your bed

With every part of me

That i give you tonight

That you give me tonight

That the gods give us

To sleep in.

Drip

The quiet peace of my

Inner most

Watches me fuck in dark alleys

And without judgement

Holds a vigil

With a million candle lights

And silence

As I walk home

And drip

Until He Comes

Sucking dick on park benches

Won't bring him any closer

As though the man I'm meant to

Sit inside a Derek Jarman film with

The lazy bacchant lover I'm supposed

To have

Is in the balls of a million strange men

And it's up to me to suck him out

I wish there were anything beautiful

In this world

To get me by

Until he comes.

La Pared

When I was a three year old

He took me out to show

Me a fountain where the goldfish

Watch over your wishes

He had much more to show

Than I needed to know




And after him I feel like I was on

The wall

And you could push me over if you want

But you can't be there when I fall

For me




When I was fourteen later in my youth

I wanted to make sure it was me who knew

How to be in charge

So I called

An older man with no name

To come and claim me

And when my family had all gone

I gave him a virginity I never had

I tried to grab onto

Myself but I lost it all




And after him I know that I hit

The wall

And gave up knowing what was on

The other side at all

I tried to catch my breath but i hit a wall

And I did my best to catch the blood

While it'd streak my face and fall

From me




When I was 19 I moved to the East

And thought I ditched the wall

But a man walked me home drunk

One night and I listened when he talked

He said I needed him to help

And he'd be there in case I fell

He led me down into the trees to

Show me a quicker route

When he ripped the belt from my young waist

I knew what he was talking about




After him I was underneath

The wall

And I tried to push myself back up

But by now I was just too calm

And no one sees me now just

A wall

I can stand the dirt and and the sand

But I can't answer

I can't hear you when you call

To me




When I was 23 years old I put the wrong things into me

I let the same men who brought me hell

Have the lock and keep the keys

And I chocked in sweat until I coughed up nasty HIV

Sitting underneath the wall you catch

What rolls downstream




And after him I know that I'm inside

The wall

I ask you how can something live

With no air to breathe at all?

And you can climb and kick or try and dig

To travel underneath

But I am now whats between you

And the side that you cant see




And I watch you as you walk away

And do not turn around

You tell me that Im broken, lost

And someday you hope I'm found

But how can you find what's hidden in

The wall?

You can look a lifetime if you'd like

And I'll be here standing tall

The wall




After me I will walk away from

The wall

And I'll sit with tears on the other side

And watch this fucker fall

I am what will one day break down

The wall

If I've learned anything I learned how

To be a wrecking ball

Nothing breaks better than from inside

So I hide inside and plot within

Pushing back against

Both sides

And you don't have to know what's on my mind

But I will give you hope

That I'm still going

And I'll show you that I'm fine

And you can one day come and watch it fall

Drink the daylight breathe the air

And understand it all

With me.