* And I Want To Say... For World AIDS Day

“There are crazy rhythms in this room. They click and churn and hiss and beep. They tick away the time between breaths. Such crazy rhythms inside this room, and I just can’t even dance to them. I wish I could speak… but the words, they won’t come. So these rhythms, they break the silence, fill in the vacancies, make up for this scarcity of language; and it’s strange how these rhythms can hush the occasional uneasy utterance.



Please, take this silence as Love, because words no longer make sense to me. Words like: The Plague, and words like Haitians. Words like Africans. Words like junkies, like faggots, like gay. Words go in and out of fashion and they don’t always vogue upon the tongue. Words... they can prick us like dirty needles… and leave behind these scary realities like: HIV, Thrush, and SIDA, and AIDS.



So, take this silence as a LOVE, baby. And right now, I’m loving you ‘til death.

Please, take my silence as a Daring, and most Death-Defying Act of Love!



See, sometimes I think, I think too much. Sometimes
I think this world is just
A Stupid Test
Of love
And most of us
Are failing it

Miserably."




One Love.



*Excerpt from ‘And I Want To Say’ copyright © 2001 and 2010 by L.M. Ross