I wish I could tell you what would snap YOU out of the daze You’re in, but what works for one does NOT work for all.
I will say that motion breeds emotion (THANKS! Brother Richard Moratto, F.S.C.!), and do your utmost to see that the rest of your life you must seek for quality of life, and not pay attention to the quantity.
In the four years since I went on disability, I’ve found my True Love, also positive, who understands full well, since we have been through sick times, that the day-to-day Love we share is the best we could possibly hope for anyway, so we’ve got it all, if we just get a grip on our expectations.
That's not hard to do, considering I've had a documented "healing" on my leg and two other "miracles"! Doctors say pay it no attention.
Happens all the time.
Perhaps a gift from my Mother, or from my friends, or from all of us together. I don't question it.
We live in San Francisco, USA where PDA (public display of affection), such as hand holding (nothing racy!), is unnoticed except by those who approve, which number many.
I know that others find other experiences, but we like the ones we’ve found here in our city of choice.
We’re lucky though, I’d be dead if I lived many other places.
It all boils down to counting your blessings instead of regrets.
Just like Life was BEFORE you were Positive.
IT HASN’T CHANGED.
It won’t.
Life goes on and you must rejoin life to benefit from your strength-giving emotions.
And take your pills! They're magical too!
No immunity for you and me
We repeat history
because we refuse to remember.
No doubt we learned it
no doubt we loved.
Lovers dodge kisses
and everyday people dodge bullets.
There is no teacher good enough to unstop all the
ears
or self-forsaking mothers to dry all the tears
Horoscopes and fortune cookies are just for laughs
we can dance our asses off wearing fake smiles
but sooner or later we need the comforts of the roots
of the grass
when you're buried or to relieve the pavement stretching
for miles.
Listen my children and you will hear
but will you remember after you've listened?
If you do, you'll love and love forever
turning from Cupid and Biblical myth toward the True
Light.
-Darrin Pruitt
Eleven funerals in two weeks
and named executor to three estates
it's been a bad week, running weak, he needs a break
T-cells at 1700 last year and 800 this
will he feel a black specter behind him at 50 or less?
We well worriers go it safely
but still that one chance in a million sticks in our
mind
when our neighbors can barely move the inches they
die by
Last night I ignored the phone for the first time in
weeks
turning off the ring of a wish for one I'd die for
who never stayed
but left me with this and that and the other thing
-Darrin Pruitt
Dear Starry Eyes,
Thanks for the use of your poetry! I'm amazed at how
your poetry explains my present as it helped you cope in the past! I'm eternally grateful! We EACH touched our inner being.
Starrier Eyes
(All poetry, except where noted, is the sole property of Darrin Pruitt, copyrighted 1995. All rights
reserved.)
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS
What continues
everything.
golfers on the greens, squirrels dodging trees
this constant hunger
this need to fast
While I look for a place to set
not quite finding it yet
brief seconds of transport come
looking at the alley canopied by gnarled limbs
like the country highways in France.
the black boys go by seated
on the handle-bars of bikes
and none of it can distract me
from the hole in my life
standing letting me peer through.
Vague disquiet comes to me
because I distrusted my heart
and slept with a stranger
with pseudo-manuevers resembling what's
on the other side of that hole.
I
don't do what I know is true
and why
I still don't understand.
I rock like this bough I'm in
and wonder that I've not yet broken
Walking sock-feet in the grass
falling onto a blanket
his hand on my empty stomach
whoever he is
the sun increasing the volume of red hair
a chest for my head
a hunger I just let be
drifting carelessly to sleep
The afternoons in the park
a sunny day out of the sun
skaters ungracefully marching by
others sway and glide
so many of us dreaming
no more sleeping
being so alive
And we are fortunate in America to have the drug availabilty and the superb collaboration of our medical partners in their treatment services.
For your sake and all of our sakes,
Tracer fire darts on the back of my eyelids;
your fire showered onto my chest
and seeped through the skin to my heart.
I'm in love with that fire.
The waking is not so pretty as the dream;
the yellow crumbs of sleep dot my lashes.
Last night my heart emptied itself
into the wishes and desires drifting off
with your friendly, long body next to me.
There is peaceful absence of hopes and predictions
replaced by the certainty of being friends.
My heart refills itself by not dreaming much at all
and you know it
as sure as I.
Only friends really fall in love.
Why did you make me so ashamed
of being human
with my various parts and
acknowledgement of the differences
I should have been able to change
my sisters' diapers, should have held
them like I held onto my brother
at times you didn't know.
And now I have no family
but I have the glimpses:
the way my lover holds me without a care
of how I see him
strong or weak for having a heart
letting himself or me
be the child we need to be
when we need to be.
So ironic how you both started
out so loving and giving the right
hugs, the right kisses
and then you forgot and lost
your hearts, the places of comfort
that understand and forgive;
they allow you to love like you
dream love should be.
I am writing this for those who will come in the
days we hope for, called the future, when AIDS is of the past.
It is fast approaching that, though no one will know
for sure until we don't continue to die from "complications DUE to aids."
Taking a dozen (sometimes many more) pills a day,
with all the interaction complications, is no picnic, but life can still be very fulfilling, using diminished capabilities brought about by lack of stamina...
It is still better
to stay safe, which is not perhaps as easy as just always using a condom.
Self dishonesty and public dishonesty merely hide the truth. It does not NEGATE it.
A PANDEMIC is still making its way throughout the whole world.
Understand that FULLY!
You may think it will bypass you, but my real life experiences say otherwise. It will touch someone you know, and then you too will become it's "victim".
Search the medical literature, I won't name names
in this story, unless they are dead friends. Consider this my "names" memorial.
I don't sew well!
And please, the INITIAL success of the aids cocktail may fool some into not bothering to be safe, and then the pandemic will get out of hand again.
Many consider sex education the root of all evil,
but perhaps the LACK of sex education causes other problems that are more
serious. Unwanted pregnancies producing unwanted abortions come to my mind, not to mention hate crimes born of ignorance.
I read that they are back to banning books for the
"sake of the children's education". What a stupid approach! Have ivory towers ever been useful except in fairy tales? Monasticism is different than ivory towers!
That's my HONEST opinion anyway.
(Understand also that other countries are not as fortunate as us in the US of A! The pandemic rages elsewhere, as medicines are scarce and expensive.)
-D Starkovich November 28, 97
I met D at The Cinch (still there! www.cinch.com, I think), where he liked to hang out. We became good friends, and visited with each other many times throughout the intervening years. He's visited my family's cabin, and we cuddled all night as it was winter, yet never felt "the urge", though we knew we loved one another. We were good friends and his death was the hardest for me to take as I saw he was cheating himself of Hope.
He taught me "hard" drugs were the most self destructive vice I had ever seen. He was into methamphetamines, and was proud of how good he felt and attributed it to his love of "speed". He was a fool, though, my friend was. I watched helplessly as he sped himself to an early grave, passing through a horrible death.
I still listen to the tape of his I have, Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits. It's one of my favorites and will re-enter my story in a later chapter.
I still listen to my "hero's" tape as well. (Mandy Patinkin - "I'm happy,
so happy, I'm walking on air...the where and the whyfore is someone I care
for!" I feel Mr. Patinkin's "Happy Medley" to the depths of my soul when I listen to it.)
B. was HAPPY about his fate, because he lived for the moment. Saturday
night shows at Kimos was his moment to shine, though he shined every moment
I knew him.
B loved my moustache, and let me know he was more than just "interested". He also let me know he'd be happy if I just cut it off and gave it to him! Such a gentleman he was. Me in a uniform was a fantasy of his. One I never fulfilled. I should have, it wouldn't have "cost" me much! I could have worn a costume to work for Halloween, since uniforms are not my thing.
We worked in adjacent cubicles, and we'd toss one another notes and
candy. We loved our jobs, we loved each other, and we made our workdays
fun! Oh yes, we got our work done too!
When his "runs" got the best of his life, he refused to accept phone
calls or visits. It broke my heart to see such a fun loving Drag Queen
(Excuse me, B! An ACCOMPLISHED Female Impersonator!) forget that I was
a friend used to the "complications" of aids. It hurt him more than it
hurt me, I'm sure. When I can laugh at shitting the bed at three in the morning, I know that laughter is there to allow us to choose a better path than crying. EACH INDIVIDUAL'S BELIEF'S contribute to the collective "what is possible and what is not" definition. For an individual to feel FULFILLED, one has to work WITHIN the given construct of society. I do, except I babble more on the net...there's no one to tell me to shut up, and I certainly wouldn't want to leave the telling of my story to someone else!
I miss them both, but their lessons helped shape my life. They are with
me helping me shape myself still.
I'm not finished after all, just pausing in this eternal moment.
One a fool, unhappy with his fate, one a hero: A Happy Victim.
BOTH saints for sure; They taught by example, though they didn't consider
themselves teachers.
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
Blessed are those who LOVE and don't hate.
My "for the millenium" translation! Thank you, Sister Theresa, my second
grade teacher.
She gave us that assignment, and I just didn't get the instructions.
Now I understand Sister, what you wanted from us!
The past lessons must be re-interpreted to have present day meaning.
Glad I'm now just a "house-spouse"! I'm lazy. I've always looked for the
easier way to get something done. Why do it the hard way?
I like efficiency that rewards me with liesure time!
You've just GOT to take time to smell the flowers!
But stop sniffing drugs, if you are. Flowers won't smell at all when
one has had their nose cauterized from too much self-abuse.
I know. I didn't HAVE to be there. I've seen it through my friends' lives, both the "devils" and the "saints".
And Ballade was the result of a friend who I helped that couldn't help
herself stop doing drugs.
My music explains my life to myself in later years. And my friends
poetry explains portions of my present.
Or so I see it that way now.
Isn't LIFE itself the most convoluted, eternally renewing GRANDNESS you've ever seen?
Don't distort it with destructive drugs. For you own safety's sake.
Can it be said often enough?
I listened to it over and over in my younger days:
"I'm no fool no sirree, I want to live to be ninety-three! So I play
it safe for you and me,
CAUSE I'M NO FOOL!" (From The Mickey Mouse Show of
my childhood! Then it referred to personal safety and the safety of others. Consider it's beauty and appropriateness for the next millenium, and understand: it too, is a victim of aids.)
Thanks, Jiminy Crickett, Thanks, Walt Disney. You'd be very proud of your decendants and the company your "children" are guiding in today's world of confusion. The recent Cinderella remake is a Masterpiece of Charm and will endure for a long, long, time, thanks to today's technology.
P.S. To whom it may concern,
I have no affiliations with anyone, except my family. I am my own individual
personality!
Please stop ragging on Disney. They DON'T deserve it.
And I have personal rights as well, even though I'm gay.
JUDGE someone else, if you please!
If not, don't worry, I know how to forgive.
In my not-so-humble but certified honest opinion!
Thanks, Jane Roberts and Robb Butts. Collaborations always seem to take on an added demension, no?!
The first thing Audie told me when I arrived for my first "official" attendance of the girls club wednesday night weekly "meeting" was, "Dave, what I want to tell you before everyone gets here, is there are NO RULES to the girls club!"
The last thing I said to Audie, a few minutes before he died, was, "Don't worry, Audie, you'll be happy again." Then I left, to preserve the moment of his death for his family, and faithful nurse.
(We shared a dream two nights later, and Audie was laughing and dancing once again.)
Then I went next door to Randy's. Lee handed me the bottle of Vodka when Audie's sister called.
I took a big swig, and prepared myself for what was coming. It was someone else's Birthday Party, that very night.
Rather than a wake, we held the birthday party as best we could, mainly reminiscing. Audie would have insisted. He was the driving force behind the girls club if not the first member. Lee knew Audie from New Orleans.
Audie knew how to take over and dream big! Lee knew how to preserve worthwhile traditions.
Every year Easter was Audie's. The Easter Hat Parties of Noe Street are legendary, and gone forever, except in the memorialization some friends are writing.
Shortly before he died, we gussied him up as only the girls club can do, and headed him in his wheelchair down to Castro Street, where he had the final great moment of his life. Greeted by the many who knew of his accomplishments, Audie told us later, with the hugest smile we had seen on him in 2 years, that he LIVED for Halloween.
Wish I had been there for more of those parties, the one I was at was a hoot!
I only made one, and asked for my Mother's permission before missing the family's gathering.
A weekend for two at the Russion River was the grand prize.
Audie believed in prizes. He gave many away in his life, usually zany momentos. I still have the slide whistle from one of his parties. Hell, my apartment is full of pieces of them. I gaze at them fondly every single day, giving me hope for a long, long, existence, remembering them.
LEE
I stroked the sides of Lee's head as we gathered around him in his final moments.
I didn't even notice the lack of the signal during his final moments.
They had to tell me, I was so involved in giving Lee the affection he so loved.
I gave the floor nurse the tape player I had won as a gift for her angelic understanding.
I told her she was the "salt of the earth", and they all were. Lee was only comatose.
They did what was neccessary, as he was suffering accute renal failure.
But Lee taught me hope, and will forever be in my heart.
He did not die, his body died.
My first memory is of a wonderful couple! They are standing by a wall that the nice man is building. He makes each brick and puts it aside. He takes another and puts it in place. She watches with a Loving Smile on her face. I told my parents of this memory when I was young. They said I was in Mom's womb when that portion of the wall was finished. Kenny also remembers an accident his Mother was in when she was pregnant with him. I figure we all take a peek and then forget it as life goes on. I've never forgotten what life shows me, though I may not understand it for a LONG, LONG time. I remember, especially for this story, my dreams. You see, I believe in my heart AND mind that DEATH is the only important illusion here, in this story. Some consider that the physical reality is illusion, and from their perspective I guess it is true. But we LIVE here, now, why consider our Physical Reality false? Feels REAL to me! The physical reality is at least a VERIFIABLE truth! We can experience MORE than the physical reality, that's for sure...but inanimate matter cares enough for the physical reality that it stays inanimate! Shouldn't we care as much? Oops, rambling again! Back to my dreams! Each and everytime a Loved One has died I have had a dream of them afterwards. I'll tell as the story goes along, but I say it now to connect it with "my peek" and tell you, there is MORE to life than just the physical reality, but we IGNORE physical reality at our physical peril! Science exists as sure as magic does! Nature is Magic, Dreams are Magic, Imagination is Magic. LOVE IS THE FOUNDATION of both Science AND Magic! What we believe, filters the LOVE of the universe into a recognizable and semi-stable state: Though it is an added responsibility to think of Life in this way, it is the way it is, so why not use thought constructively? Want a good example of both science and magic combined? Look at your Doctor, my friend! My Doctor is an Angel who deals with the interaction of Science (Medicine) and Magic (People) each day! Clinical Science is even starting to pay attention to beliefs, hence the resurgence of holistic medicine. As my Loving Honey, Kenny Cowan says: See it from the HEART! Our life together is truly magical. We've "beaten the odds" already, both individually and together. What's left is our reward, if we see it that way! We recognize the MAGIC of it all! MAGIC IS AS MAGIC DOES!!! I have a battery, the cover of which exploded while I was typing this story. It now reads Coincidence? Coincidience is a HOAX!
Beyond that, I'll just have to wait and see what's up for next time like the rest of us. Yes Dears, I have proof of Reincarnation but unfortunately the proof of that is entirely subjective and this society demands incontravertible, objective, proof. Believe me or not, you know this in your heart too. You've just got to listen from your heart.
But besides that, I feel them in my heart whenever I wish to. That's the gift they gave me.
Lee taught me, Audie taught me, they all taught me this.
I'm nothing special. I'm just a good student! I know how to pay attention to what life offers to teach! Especially since I was batted over the head with it! My friends never were subtle!
Our Personally Perceived Physical Reality!
D
uracell.
the story continues...