August 2001

Lyphe is good.
A sunny afternoon in San Francisco.
I'm high. Listening to Swing Out Sister.
It has been an eventful summer. I've been to L.A. for Eli and Jim's wedding, back to Santa Barbara, and Chicago.
Beauty and profundity. Darkness and danger.
I am now twenty-eight!
I was having a slice of pizza, minding my own business when he walked in and flashed the goofiest smile. It was late in the Castro where I had come to celebrate my birthday, by myself, with strangers at bars, dancing shirtless, friendly, smiling men dancing with me, caressing my chest. I smiled casually back at the stranger, avoiding encouraging an encounter as I had already gone home with someone earlier. Don't worry, I didn't engage in risky behavior. We had only jerked each other off.
Again he flashed that endearing smile and I couldn't help it. I smiled back and said hello.
He said his name was Stephen and we walked together, smoking, talking. He said he liked to kiss. We spent the night together.
I can't sit still and am insatiable. My confidence scares me. My beauty feels dangerous. All my windows are wide open and thoughts and desires fly away on vagabond winds. Kissing others. Nipping. Tasting life that is married to inevitable and handsome death. The streets are shiny, as if wet from my kisses. They dip and turn.
I am an addict. I've always known this. I want to be sober, but don't know how. The need for a buzz is electric. The electric need jolts, demands an outlet. I take drugs to appreciate. To alleviate.
A slice of pizza. A goofy smile. A kiss that has led to this, to now, to here. Stephen and I have seen each other twice now and have enjoyed good food, delicious cocktails, and each other- kissing, cuddling.
That first night, on my birthday, we discovered that we have a mutual friend- Nadia. This came up when he asked me what ethnicity I am. And while Stephen is six years my senior we went to the same junior high school- Herbert Slater in Santa Rosa, California. That night in bed he divulged that he is HIV positive. I said it didn't matter because I did not plan on doing anything stupid, and held him.
Stephen is so unlike Tariq. He isn't hesitant about complementing me, being enthusiastic, kissing me, calling, e-mailing. Our attraction for each other is buxom.
Tonight I met some of Stephen's friends at a restaurant in the city. Everyone was polite and colorful. So many conversations, gestures. I did, however, feel at times that I was on display. Stephen likes to wear me on his arm. This bothers me, but I am waiting to see what happens. I felt beautiful. Friends joked that Stephen is the jealous type. They huddled around me, asked me questions, tenderly touched me, were fascinated. I asked them questions too, wanted to know their story.
At the end of the night Stephen walked me to my car up a hill on 18th Street. "Everyone adores you."
'Of course they do!' I joked.
We had taken Vicodin and felt weightless.
Socializing with Americans is so much more lighthearted than with Middle Easterners. We are too intense, too complex, political, particularly queer Middle Easterners. As much as I appreciate my Arab, Iranian, Assyrian friends I find Americans refreshing, straightforward, candid, easy, frivolous.
It's almost four in the morning and I can't sleep because of the drug I took. No one tonight knew I was on the drug. But here I am, high, smoking by the side door in the garage as everyone else sleeps.
Tariq is living in Oakland with his boyfriend Raymond. I have no desire to see him.
Life is no longer about the right thing but the juxtaposing of contradictions.
Why am I drawn to drugs, to intoxication and intoxicating others? I wish I were water, not human. Rain, not flesh. River, not bones and thoughts.
Summer of addiction. Willing to give up everything to gain complete understanding of what it means to be human, to love like humans, to give and take with them.
Stephen poured wine into our glasses while multicolored lights reflected off of our smiles and silverware. We were dining outside. I stretched, lit a cigarette, and asked, 'So, where to from here? What are we doing?'
Though tired and sleep-deprived, I languidly enjoyed Stephen's company, his silly facial expressions, his animated gestures.
"I'm really into you and want to pursue a relationship. I want to be monogamous."
I said I hoped that he was serious about what he wanted, that I would not be just a whim for him. Again he expressed anxiety about his HIV status, and I shrugged, 'It doesn't worry me, Stephen.'
We established that we would continue seeing each other. Stephen smiled, "I'm excited I have a boyfriend."
We laughed.
We made out in my car. Light fell dramatically like leaves on our faces. The kisses were hot. Black because our eyes were closed, exchanging phosphenes with our lips. My legs tingled, butterflies, lightness, floating sensations, an acute feeling of here and now.
He asked if I have told Jackie about us. I said I hadn't and saw the disappointment on his shadowy face. I explained that she and I have not been as close this summer, we have barely seen each other.
Over dinner he'd asked, "If you could change one thing what would it be?"
This is it. These are the ruling events. This is our inevitable journey. The moments within which we age are tidal waves and fire. I do not fear death, but a life wasted on fear and precaution, self-preservation.
I thought about it a few moments. What would I change? I've spent so much of my life trying to accept things as they are, I can't imagine having the power, the luxury of change. What did he expect me to say? His HIV? Because this did not cross my mind.
I spoke to mom recently who has moved to Las Vegas and hates it. She has a brother there, a close friend- Andre Agassi's aunt. She wants to come back. I miss her immensely.
Jackie and Mom-Suzie got into it with my uncle Sam one weekend. Sam, like my grandfather who was abusive, is temperamental, unpredictable. They told him he was not welcome back. He told them they would die terrible deaths. I imagine he regrets his outburst and feel sorry for him.
I try to comfort my grandmother whose heart is broken, wondering why Sam and mom resent her so much, lash out in such ferocious ways. Is it that they are the two oldest of the four and remember more of the terrible Tehran years?
Dad's alcoholism. Mom's rage...
The human body slips, falls, bruises, sneezes, farts, aches. Even the mind suffers. But the soul remains resilient in ways that the body and mind cannot imagine.
Stephen is somewhat immature. But who cares, I tell myself. We're just dating. No demands. No expectations.
I had a dream in which Stephen became angry and violent.
I pick up the six-hundred-dollar tab for Stephen's birthday. Money does not matter. I break the rules before they can break me. Surprising myself is a thrill.