El Monte, California
Positive since 2013

September 6, 2013 was the day I found out I was HIV positive. This is my story. 



I woke up Friday morning and it was like every other Friday morning. I showered, brushed my teeth, went into the kitchen and prepared my lunch. I greeted the animals that circled around me; the dogs wagged their tails, the birds squawked. I was happy.

I was one month and six days into my new vegetarian diet. I lived in a house with a strict vegetarian and my best friend was also a vegetarian so it was only natural that I would become a vegetarian since people who I loved influenced me. I had been working out for the entire month of August, documenting my workout regime on Facebook along with my new healthy lifestyle.



Before the lifestyle change I always ate whatever I craved; if I wanted cookies, I ate cookies; if I wanted hamburgers, I ate hamburgers. I ate candy, chips and cake. So the fact that I could go cold turkey and change the way I lived and ate was a miracle. But I did it and was very proud of myself.

I’m a short skinny guy, with a pale white face, a little bit of stubble, brown hair, green eyes, small nose, slender body. I’d say I’m attractive, not super model attractive, but I was on my way to becoming healthier and happier and wanted to project my successes and failures to my little audience on Twitter and Facebook. 



The previous two nights, I remember my throat was a little bit sore. I couldn’t explain why; the weather was great. I was feeling vibrant and strong and I hadn’t had sex for a long time. My last encounter was with someone I knew but didn’t know very well.



One of my personality flaws is that I believe that everyone I meet is HIV negative—instead of treating everyone as though they are HIV positive. It’s hard to believe that there are people out there who don’t know or don’t care about their status. I don’t walk outside and think, “Oh, that person is HIV positive,” or “that person is HIV negative." The fact of the matter is that it’s nearly impossible to know someone’s HIV status unless someone tells you they are positive. I always believe that people are inherently good and not evil, I feel so naive in retrospect. The truth is that there are people who don’t care if they infect you. Or they don’t even know that they are positive. 



Whatever the case, the truth is I don’t know how this happened to me. I never have sex with anyone without discussing STIs and HIV status. I make it a habit of asking a person several times. I also get tested every three months, even if I’m not having sex. I have a severe case of hypochondria.



After I finished lunch, I got into my car and headed over to my local testing location. Everyone calls this place “the Spot.” I don’t think I’ll ever forget the day I found out; thinking about it makes my stomach churn. I walked in very confidently thinking I was going to leave as soon as I got my negative result. I had been tested in June and had a negative test result. Before that test I was tested in April and in January. They had my records.



I didn’t realize that September 6 was going to be the day that my life changed forever. I sat in the little white room at the testing center very anxious to leave because I wanted to see my best friend. He had texted me earlier in the morning telling me he had a surprise. I was really looking forward to spending some time with him.



The lady in the room was a portly black woman and had a very gentle face with big brown eyes. She sat across the table, asked me a few questions and then administered the Rapid HIV test. I remember telling her I hate needles; she assured me it would be fine.



When she finished, we sat down at her desk and she asked me questions about my sexual history. I answered everything I could remember. When we finished she had me verify my information and asked me to sit outside in the lobby. Fifteen minutes later she called me back in and I sat down before she could even offer me a seat.



She walked around the room holding a piece of white paper and her eyes were really wide and bright like black moons surrounded by white milky clouds. She looked at me and told me bluntly that my test came back positive. I blinked. I asked if we could take it again because I knew sometimes tests could result in a false positive. We did another test—a one-minute Rapid HIV test and it also came back positive. I asked her to do it again. POSITIVE. POSITIVE. POSITIVE.



I started hyperventilating. My life really did flash before my eyes. “I am HIV positive” was ringing in my ears. It was like a bad dream becoming a reality. Every gay man in the world thinks about this; it’s a nightmare that lingers in every gay man’s imagination. How could this have happened to me, I wondered? I am young. I am eating healthy. I am working out. I am on the verge of finishing my children’s fantasy book. Why me?!?



There was no one who could give me comfort at that moment or answers—not even myself. I didn’t know what it meant to be HIV positive. I was alone. I cried. The lady gave me some tissues. I felt like I was already dead. She gave me a cup of water. I drank it down like a shot of vodka. I stood up and asked if I could leave. She told me I still had to have my blood drawn. It was important to find out what my viral load was.


I remember thinking I didn’t know what to do. I texted my friend who was waiting for me to finish so I could come over and cook and he could tell me his surprise.

He came to meet me. We cried. We left the testing center and sat at the park. He hugged me. Birds flew over us; the basketball players in the park continued to play; the cars sped by.

He told me his surprise, which was that he got tickets to a concert for our favorite band. I’m going to go see Placebo—one of my favorite bands. Their music changed my life. I smiled, but I couldn’t stop crying. That was a great surprise in comparison to what I had just learned about myself. We got in the car and I called two other best friends. I told them what happened to me. They cried. We got to my friend’s house and we made a video. I don’t remember what I said. I don’t think I could watch it today.

I still had to tell another best friend whom I lived with. I didn’t know how or when to tell him. I knew I couldn’t go home like this. I needed another day to process everything that had happened.

It felt like darkness had enveloped my entire being. It was like everything that I wanted to be no longer mattered. My dreams seemed to be crumbling away as this life-negating virus circulated through my veins and bloodstream. I couldn’t see anything past the present moment. The future became black. The past was a phantasmagoria of violent and sexual images. My art was never going to be the same. My thoughts were never going to be the same. My dreams were never going to be the same. My relationships where never going to be the same.

In the rush of everything that was happening, I forgot about one important person I loved. I wasn’t completely abstinent. I let him swallow my cum three weeks before I got tested and we had sex a week before I got tested, but we used a condom. It was just a matter of me telling him the truth.



I hated my life on that day. I was now HIV positive and there was no turning back from what was and what I had become. There was only going forward. Telling my housemate was important. Telling the guy I loved for almost six years was important. Would I even dare tell my family? So many questions, but no answers.



The first day of an HIV positive diagnosis is hard. It’s scary and it’s surreal. It’s like a white canvas being entirely submerged into buckets of black paint over and over again. It’s like watching an AIDS documentary on Netflix and all the faces of those people who died in the pandemic in the 1980’s are suddenly connected the very fabric of your soul.



It’s now more than a month later and I’m still alive. Still making art, still writing, still laughing, still crying, still being me...and hoping that this is just a dream inside a dream, and I’ll wake up tomorrow and someone will tell me it’s just a joke. But the truth is—that’s not going to happen.

A French philosopher and critic, Michel Foucault, who died of AIDS in 1984 said, "I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know what will be the end."



So, I have HIV. It doesn’t mean it’s the end of my life and it doesn’t mean that there can never be a new beginning. For every terrible end there is an even greater beginning because the next time something bad happens, the knowledge of past experience will be there to aid you, and everything that was can be applied to everything that you will become. 



So smile, because life continues and so does the promise of a better future.


What three adjectives best describe you?
Complex, daring, imaginative

What is your greatest achievement?
I created a huge social media platform for my best friend, bringing together community of over 200,000 people.

What is your greatest regret?
Not working hard enough to finish my book

What keeps you up at night?
Dreams

If you could change one thing about living with HIV, what would it be?
One pill a year, instead of one a day

What is the best advice you ever received?
The three T’s: talent, tenacity and good taste for success.

What person in the HIV/AIDS community do you most admire?
He died—his name was Michel Foucault

What drives you to do what you do?
Helping people

What is your motto?
Live for others before yourself

If you had to evacuate your house immediately, what is the one thing you would grab on the way out?
I don’t need anything but my body and mind

If you could be any animal, what would you be? And why?
A parrot because they are able to fly, are colorful and intelligent.


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