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Table of Contents



The View

Status Seekers

Mentors-Feb/March 2007




Filling Station

Behind Every Good Woman?

How the Other Half Lives

Juiced

Reyataz: Out With the Two Old, and In With One New

Ask the Sexpert-Feb/March 2007

Clap Trap

In the House

Pay It Forward

Health By Chocolate

Heart Condition




Saved by the Belly

Party Games

Discomfort Inn

Disobedience School

Styx and Stones

Parental Guidance

Oral Majority

Office Flirt

Who’s the Boss




Ed Letter-Feb/March 2007

Mailbox-Feb/March 2007

Catch of the Month-Feb/March 2007


Most Talked About

HIV: Behind the Music (47)

An HIV Doc's Dilemma (29)

Virtual Prevention: Fighting HIV Online (26)

Inmate Testing: Optional or Mandatory? (18)

Killer Gay Sex! (15)

Most Popular Lessons

Herpes Simplex Virus

Syphilis & Neurosyphilis

Shingles

The HIV Life Cycle

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)


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February / March 2007


Heart Condition

by Jesse Cameron Alick

I fall in love constantly. I’m 25, after all. And a fine black brother. And a poet. I can’t believe I didn’t mention that first! Falling in love is in the job description. But love hasn’t been the same since I found out I was positive. The clichéd seas of romance are now littered with debris: disrobing, disclosing my HIV, pretending passion can ultimately protect me against the pain of rejection. I decide after my last breakup that it just isn’t worth it. I give up.

Three months after I swear off love, I walk into the first rehearsal for a play my theater company is doing. Not only does the director cast me in a makeout scene—he casts a hot guy as my makeout partner. The beautiful Middle Eastern actor comes in. It’s been raining, and his shoes and socks are soaked. He takes them off while I watch and then squeezes the socks over a garbage can.

“You see that?” He laughs.  

I smile at the floor in shame, for surely I cannot be worthy enough to touch this person. The battle begins inside me: the HIV positive man versus the poet; virus warring verse. How can anyone love when they have so many issues pressing down on them? How can anyone not? And then I unmake my resolution: I might have a disease that persuades me to give up on love, but I still reserve the right to fall at any time.  

God bless my changeable mind.

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