posted to the wall
New York Times
At-risk for what.
Prison…
Homelessness. School failure. Depression, and the fragments they have become after enduring years of sexual abuse.
Then, sex work. Conflicted. Irony.
Then, addiction.
And this is Appalachia where people OD by the dozens. In terms of categories where you can compare the numbers, the boys are in a perpetual state of suicidal ideation. It does not lift of its own accord. Nor does sexualized violence aimed at them.
It all gets expressed in the art they make.
Click a button on a camera, “I can’t do that. I can’t make things.”
They can. But giving up is harder when you’ve been teamed with a peer.
These boys are the throwaways. The invisible. The kids who no one can help because the boys reject just about anything that comes at them.
Everything but art.
I am the Creative Director of Real Stories Gallery Foundation. I have forty years of experience dealing with this population.
Immunity is relative. We make art.
I have every problem they have. We are not unalike.
Getting the right medications is a life-long battle with institutions. The average kid has nine different meds.
Our public health clinic greets kids with cops at the door armed with guns.
They have a list of patients’ names as to who has an appointment. People with HIV do not need guns at the door they are about to walk through.
Adolescent boys will leave. Then what. Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat.
Suicide is an out from the cyclical pain.
