‘Es un momento tan bello’

I was invited by Mexican Artist Beto Peréz to contribute a piece of writing and video reading the piece of writing for his video installation "Estas imágenes no van juntas.”
Beto’s piece is part of the exhibition “Geografías Flotantes” curated by FRANZISKA at the Centro Multimedia del Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City.
The exhibition is on view from Aug 5th, 2023 until Sept 17th, 2023.

This piece is meant to be read as a monologue performance and is specifically part of the site-specific installation, "Estas imágenes no van juntas.”

To learn more about how this piece came together please check out the Aug 10, 2023 supdst newsletter.

Line breaks are meant to signify places of pause in the reading of the piece.
Action, blocking, or descriptive notes are indicated in [italicized brackets]:

Amigue!

There's this documentary about Nina Simone, from the 1970s, called "Nina Simone - A Historical Perspective." And she gets asked in the documentary at one point, "What is free to you?" And she kind of evades the question for a little bit. But then I think she starts finding a thought and running with it and articulating it. And she just says:

“It's just a feeling.
It's like, how do you tell somebody how it feels to be in love?
You can't do it to save your life.
You can describe things, but you can't tell them.
But you know it when it happens.
That's what I mean, by free."

And she then continues on and she just says:

"I'll tell you what freedom means to me!
No fear.
I mean, really no fear.
If I could have that for half my life, no fear."

-

And, you know, it's just, it's like a really beautiful moment, because you can tell she's getting wrapped up in it. And it just always makes me think about like.
Have I ever felt free with my HIV?

I seroconverted in 2010, when I was 18, and still burning with this newfound agency, and fearlessness, and possibility, and, and delusion. Which isn't always a bad thing.

But yeah, I mean, there was absolutely a moment of fear when I found out I was positive. Most of what I knew about HIV at the time was like, very top line, public high school sex-ed that information.
It was very, like, here's how the disease came to be known in the 80s and 90s. Here's the crisis. Here's what it looks like: Kaposi sarcoma lesions all over the body and the face and these bodies like deteriorating into themselves. And, and then you die.

And it was a tragedy and a cautionary tale all wrapped up in one. And and, you know, my doctor made it clear to me that science had figured some things out. And as long as I take my one pill a day, I should be okay. And that was like enough information for me.

I didn't want to know anymore. I took my one pill a day and I found freedom in this like insistent ignorance.

I think finding out more then would have been way too much for like a baby me.

And even in my insistent ignorance, though, my HIV did clarify some thoughts. “If only through a sense of urgency,” as a writer, Walter Rico Burrell, he wrote in this 1989 diary entry that's included in Joseph Beam and Essex Hemphill's Brother to Brother.

You know, the shock of how real death is, the limitations of my life nourish a streak of just punkish determination in me.

I think I thought that I was going to die at some undetermined soon time. And I wanted to have as much fun as possible. I wanted to have as much fun as I could get away with.

-

And I wanted to be as bold as possible.

HIV didn't erase my fear of rejection or anything like that. But this question of what if I'm really dying. And what is this is the only shot I've got? acted as enough of a backbone to push past the insecurities of possibly being rejected.

And, you know, that can feel like a type of freedom.

You know, the HIV also brought freedom to my sex life too.

I seroconverted, several years before PrEP, before everyone wanted to be a cum dump.

So there were still like, several years when people did not want to have sex with me, because of my HIV. And so I weaponized my HIV into a shield. If I led with my HIV and all the fear it inspired in people and myself, I could easily kind of identify and push aside anyone who was too scared to take a risk with me and clear them from the board possibility.

And for those who are willing to take a risk, you know, I tried my best to make the risk worth it. For them and and for me, and, and that can feel like a type of freedom.

-

You know, I think I realized that maybe HIV wasn't going to kill me as soon as I imagined when I hit like a decade of being positive.

It was a realization that coincided with COVID-19 becoming like a worldwide pandemic, and with the United States fiercely and aggresively reminding me of its violent racism and its homophobia. And, you know, I was realizing that HIV might not be the thing that kills me. But there were so many other things that could and would, if given the chance.

-

You know, the shape of freedom has changed for me.

I realized that I might actually have a whole lifetime.

And you know, there's more I want to do. And more I want to try and know some things I want to try again. And things I want to have another chance at.

HIV no doubt, urgently clarifies things through this real stark realization of mortality.

You're not invincible.

But what happens when I realized I have this opportunity to re-clarify these thoughts about life, love and happiness and freedom?

What happens when I have the time to re-clarify those thoughts again, and again, and again? You know, in five years, 10 years, and 15 years from now? What happens when I get to apply all the things I continue to learn and experience?

Those are exciting questions.

-

I came to these realization or these evolution from falling in love.

And falling in love can be a type of freedom.

I didn't want to be a person in love. A relationship at least a romantic one wasn't something that I wanted to try with my feelings of dying soon. With impending death I didn't want a relationship because I didn't want to be counted on especially since I thought I wouldn't be able to stick around. So you know, falling in love was a surprise.

He's also positive.

And part of how it happened was because he made me feel the freedom to be who I was and could see and pull out of me who I wanted to be.

There was freedom to say, do, or explore anything with each other.

He made me want to be me.

And then he made me want to be more of me at the same time.

And it wasn't just about like how he made me feel.

I think my favorite part was just this like privilege of getting to witness one of my favorite people do their very best to be themselves. This privilege of getting to witness the good, and the bad, and the terrible, and the mundane. And I wanted to be there to care for it all.*

And what a pleasure that was you know at least while it lasted.

There was in incongruency of what we wanted from each other. What we want it to be to each other.

Yeah, being in love can be a type of freedom.

-

So yeah, I felt free with HIV.

And Miss Simone is right there's a real aspect of freedom that is about feeling “no fear.”

I haven't felt “no fear” in a long while.

I have been feeling terrified.

I have been wrong about so many things.

And I can feel myself kind of shrinking and making myself smaller so I can be kind of unnoticeable.

I can feel myself hiding.

-

But fuck it.

Right?

We keep trying.

—————

*This line is borrowed from a monologue performed by Susan Sarandon playing Beverly Clark in the 2004 film Shall We Dance? (here)