I could feel the energy of the moment in my bones—in my blood—spreading throughout my body.

Here on the playa, beside the fire, I could taste the metallic taste of IV antibiotics on my tongue—I remembered how afraid I was to die.

Looking at the bottle of AZT in my hand—a ball and chain like no other—I threw it in. After a moment the flames turned unearthly shades of green, blue, and yellow and shot higher, touching the Man's hand as it started to rise. The heat, the smoke, the ritual was simultaneously putting me into a trance and waking me up reborn.

I closed my eyes and started to feel the THUMP THUMP THUMP of my brothers and sisters. It sure beat the stuttering, lonely pings of the hospital's heart monitor. I pushed deeper into the rhythm, my skin slick, my lungs finally—violently—alive with smoke and salt.

I lay beneath the stars near the Rio Grande, Counting regrets like coins dropped in the sand. A man of motion, hitching truth to roads, Chasing the idea of home, not the house. From Texas Route 90 I watched the border stretch, The sky a velvet vault that told no lies.

I didn’t choose the family by the river, but I did choose the ones who see me as sunrise, not shadow. Who love like water—constant, soft on the edges, able to reshape everything.

There were four of us boys in that house by the Guyandotte.
Three were my uncles— still kids, really. One of them gay.
His name was Chuck. Still in high school when he was murdered.