My father, as he said many times, was born at a very young age.

He died over a year ago.

The last year has been interesting.

I cleared HCV treatment over six years ago, my dog Otis passed away when I finished treatment, and he got me through it.

The things that help us survive. Unconditional love. A best friend. I did get my Master’s in Forest Conversation because I wanted nature to be my office. Then there is HIV and the pills didn’t fix us, as some would say, it formalized rejection and that is just a retrofit of being gay. Being gay is cool and AIDS is a chronic manageable condition but it doesn’t change history. Rejected, a life of loneliness and lying. I learned a lot to survive. There has been pain. There has been days in a month that I get lost in it. There has been laughing on the beach, there has been sex, there has been music. There has been sex on the beach.

There has been a boy that survived. I am the man that never thrived. I am the whisper you do not hear. My father always said to relax. He also said that every kid deserves a chance. I was produced from the loins of Ontario’s Transparent Drug System for Patients Act in 2006. What is transparent? Who is a patient? When do they begin and when do they stop? Why was I not supported? Why didn’t anyone care? Health is a business, the care component got lost in the downsizing. I feel disenfranchised. I am falling through the cracks. Yet I will go with the flow until Harlon, the boy and the man, finds what he needs and what he wants to be happy because that is what being healthy feels like.

Relaxed.