A/N: Ok, little info about this piece. Written at 2 AM after my third performance of The Wiz in two days and after a major Grey's Anatomy/Law and Order-fest. I listened to Anna Nalick "Breathe" all the way through, and I fell asleep at my keyboard a few seconds later.
That being said...
I hate being sick.
It's been this way since I was little. I got chicken pox when I was four and the only times I wasn't whining or crying or screaming was during sleep or oatmeal baths. Every cold, every flu, every swollen gland after that was like torture. I guess I just hated the idea of there being something in me that I couldn't fight directly. It seems to be part of my nature to want to remove suffering, not just from others but from myself. Sickness takes time and sustained energy to fight, and I've never been a real fan of either.
It seemed cruelly ironic to me when I found out about the AIDS. Me, the person who almost ODs on aspirin to get rid of a headache, infected with one of the true incurable, slow-death diseases of the century. When I saw my results on that slip of paper, I almost laughed. But I was shaking too hard.
It took time, but I got over it the way so many do. I did think about killing myself—I'm pretty sure anyone would—but it just didn't seem like something I could do. How to do it: a gun or a rope or a knife or pills or whatever, it's still pulling some kind of trigger to end your own life. I've always felt that life's too precious for wasting. Taking a life, even one with an encroaching expiration date, is beyond me.
I felt differently when Mimi got her results. She was doing so many things at the time, all of which might have led to AIDS. I didn't find out that it was the smack until a few weeks in; at first, she vaguely told me it was a guy who she slept with at the Cat Scratch. I never really believed that; contrary to stereotypes, Mimi wasn't easy. Maybe it was naïve, but I couldn't believe that she had auctioned herself off like a whore. I felt almost relieved when she told me it was the smack, and then I felt like slapping her and cradling her in my arms like a baby at the same time.
I chose the second option.
But the worst thing about AIDS is the way I can forget, even for a minute or two, that I'm sick. I can forget that something is eating away at me from the inside and I'm slowly dying. And then I remember, and I ignore the remembrance, but it's still there. In the back of my brain, behind a few dusty boxes or whatever. I don't want to feel like that; Life Support helps there. But it still happens, and I honestly can't help that.
Mimi asked me something a while ago. She asked me if I would allow myself to be with Collins if he didn't have AIDS like me. I opened my mouth to answer, and then I started feeling nauseous as I realized that I couldn't answer. I wanted to think that I loved him enough for that, to stay with him even if he was free of the burden on my shoulders. But I couldn't say. I froze.
And then the answer came later. I was sitting in his lap at the Life Café, and Mark said something that made him laugh. I felt that laugh going through him; his legs, his chest, his arms, all of him. And I realized that it wasn't about loving him enough to stay with him even if he didn't have AIDS. It was about loving him enough to stay with him when we both had AIDS. Loving him enough not to care about the fact that he might die before me, or that we might not have time for all that we want to do.
Realizations like this are part of having AIDS, at least to me. I can't stop discovering things. Example…the first time I made love with Collins. How could I have even thought that was possible when I first knew about my AIDS? To find someone who loved me that much…and who was willing to do that with me, regardless of how much time I had left in this world. It's hard to love someone when you're having trouble believing that they're real.
But I did believe in him.
And it happened. The whole deal; doctors acting like I'm a time bomb, lesions, the hospital, and worst of all...
Being sick again.
I'm sick. I can't forget it anymore. But somehow, now that I'm in the hospital…I don't want to.
I hate being sick.