queer tragedy
warning of some sort for heavy material
i think M reads too much queer suffering. i think it goes to his head. i think he has no idea how much it affects his outlook.
M is in graduate school for poetry, i think there is a point where school is useless in making you better as an artist, but it means something to him. when we talk about gay culture its always parties and drugs and hookups, even in the 80s that would be a stereotype, he puts himself into the world he reads and thinks he doesnt belong. he is always reading books about the AIDS crisis. poems and art exhibitions and autobiographies. men who have died, men whose partners died. he doesnt read books with happy endings. i think something in him has decided its his burden to bear, his duty to keep the legacy of these stories going. M is always telling me about the people we have lost.
not that i dont think thats important. but you have to have balance. M tells me he has trouble enjoying personal and political wins. he tells me in smaller ways that he doesnt think he deserves to be out and proud and weird and all this and happy. i am an anxious creature too, i get it, but i believe in queer happy endings. what about right now, as a democratic socialist is elected in NYC, and activist groups create space and support for more and more people, and there is treatment for AIDS. when we have real queer rep in children's media. what about the people fighting and winning right now.
we all have a future. i hope M knows that his story is not a forgone tragedy.