Return of the mack

Last night I found my mack again. It's been misplaced for quite a while, months if you go by the unkind teasing of my roommate, my next door neighbor or any other member of my harem of straight boys. Heartbreak will do that to you though.

After a rough break up this summer my love life has been pretty lacking. Don't get me wrong - I still get around. I'm totally an active young man. In fact, I'm kind of a mack. See, now I'm just talking a big game though. But you know, you gotta talk a big game. The new age folks can tell you - it's all about manifesting reality through your own belief. Right? Why should being a mack be any different? Right.

But truth be told, being a 27 year old artist that is hopelessly romantic and also hopelessly scared of commitment - well let's just say that the past few months have been dissatisfying and leave it at that. I go through dry periods like this sometimes. It's hard to have random sexual encounters when you're HIV positive and that's just the truth. Straight up. When I was first diagnosed when I was 19, I stayed celibate for a year. I mean, it was a really rough year. And to this day, I swear, I would still be celibate (I'd be a buddhist monk living up in the mountains in Nepal is what I'm guessing) if it weren't for Brian. Brian lived down the block from me in Brooklyn and frankly, he swooped in, rescued me, shook me up and cracked me open. Brought me back to life - and for that reason, even though he and I broke up after a year or so, I will owe him forever. He was the first guy I dated after I learned I was HIV positive - basically everything I learned about not hating myself, I learned from Brian. He rocks.

Although I'm not nearly as crippled now a days, the last few months I've been having emotional flashbacks of my Pre-Brian era though. Okay, not "for some reason" - it's cause after the break up, I started in on the self depreciating abuse and then I just couldn't stop. It gets addictive. Telling yourself you're not really someone who can be "loved" per se; Going out on dates, totally uninterested; Working, writing, working, writing - totally detached. And drinking way too much. And you don't notice you're depressed - that's the thing about depression, everything is just...how it IS. Just like you don't notice you've been being apathetic until you see something that jars you and you think to yourself "I want that. How can I get it?" And then swooping down like a savior, just when you think November can't get any colder, the mack kicks in. And, although I'm certainly not trying to replace Brian (god help me), so many things about the situation reminded me of the past: the boldness, the spark of color in my "totally uninterested" mood being countered and unraveled, the cold weather, the weed, the long long conversation, the sign, the ease of the HIV disclosure. It was all so similar.

And yeah, I suppose this is a rather round about way of bragging about how I got laid last night - but I think it's more than that. Not the guy - I mean, who knows - but rather the situation. How a breakthrough can happen at anytime. Any place. You're on your ass one day and you're pushed up onto your feet the next, without knowing that you were even on your ass. Who can deny that god is good?

Ode to Trent
by jc

who knows
all the wonders of this city?
So I raise my glass of water and advil,
to the movement of people,
to the wisdom of bartenders.

I'm pleased as hell I sat down at that bar that night.
And that my date was lame.
And that you know the quickest way
down a mans pants
is through his obsession with sci fi.
You must hear so many stories like that.
My dad used to tell me - a bartender,
he sees it all.

If this is a virgo flashback - I say so be it.
The first one shattered a self imposed personality disorder
of intense social terror -
and taught me I wasn't poisonous to touch.
How can another Virgo be wrong?

I talk too much
and it takes an eternity
to run my hands through your hair.
As I do, I wonder if you're actually a time traveler.
Returning to destroy what isn't useful anymore.
If so, welcome back.
If not, welcome.
Welcome