when death is best

what more can they take away

now it made sense that no one would touch you everyone was afraid I was afraid not afraid i would catch it because i already had it but because your skin might disintegrate and i would have to lick you from my fingers as if you were a birthday cake…

we were intent on burning time into ashes

will i be arrested if i say i hate the fucking cops/ fuck cops/ that whole year, we were intent on burning time/ everything was ashes, the book of ashes, the culture cops are set to save/ all of it ashes, cops would like to bust the dead because the…

inmate

from what i have heard today, all the ships will arrive on time/ having to take a shit in front of us other inmates in the cell was a big problem for honeybunny because we liked to watch/ we made him spread his legs and you do, boy, whimper like…

Wooden Porch Swing in the Distance

behind the house, and just beyond the little woods of oaks, there’s an ancient cemetery where the confederate dead are buried in their sackcloths/ six of us are buried in here, too/ civil war is just another vulture’s boots/ the cemetery itself is dead/ not unlike a darkened theatre, and…

Junkie’s Winter

that december of thursdays we lived on the subway like dishrags, incredulous that this had happened to us/ slamming in the subway toilets/ like cats/ vicious as a tattletale/ someday someone is going to put a bullet/ through your head/ and the rest of us and our second selves —…

Winter’s Grip

it was SoLongAgoItWasYesterday it was crawling under your blankets to be with U2 smell the death sweat FangedLikeASnake whispering some bewildered we were all bewildered whispers of indifferent affectation whispering that 1day in WintersGripWas all we really ever had/

Aurelien Was a Whore

That word again. Aurelien was a veteran of the whore wars. He wanted to be a sex work activist. He wanted us to decriminalize what he did, what I did, what everyone we knew, everyone we lived with, everyone in our drug-saturated bubble did. Sex work was and is mainly…

Dead Whores

Stop asking me what photography means. The dead ones and the ones who are still alive. They do not become indignant or outraged if I call them whores. It is what they call themselves. Only normals get their hackles up. Stop asking me who the normals are. Normals are beneath…

On Being Here

i have never wanted to be here because i am above it all all all all daddy tried beating it the fuck out of me and i was literally at-risk of being murdered. he bashed my head through walls and came after me with broken liquor bottles but i could…

Car Thief

For Robb Nagle VIDEO: KEVIN WAS A CAR THIEF So. Exactly. Who. The. Fuck. Do. U. Think. I. Would. Know. Junkies. Drug Dealers. Card counters. (I love Card Counters because they screw around with casinos). Car thieves. Kevin was a car thief. “Wanna go for a ride.” I was always…

Assisted Suicide Should Be a Federal Holiday Like Christmas

assisted suicide could go a long way toward ending medical abuse the abuse we endure letting them inside us after they abuse us they have to kill us you know it’s what they want you can smell it like the water from the lake drips from the towels hung on…

CinemathequeFilms: Les Russes à Paris

CinemathequeFilms did not disintegrate like a melted marsh mellow grimace of 16mm film burned at the alter of my untimely demise. We never did get that license. We just kept making videos. We could pick and choose who saw them. Usually, only people who had cheered them on in France.…

Except For This

except for this, i am always hanging on to stones/ i should have known better than to take a dancer home/ at least i called it a home/ someone had to/ i do have rules/ rule#1/ never ever ever ever take a dancer home unless you are completely mad/ a…

Except For This

except for this, i am always hanging on to stones/ i should have known better than to take a dancer home/ at least i called it a home/ someone had to/ i do have rules/ rule#1/ never ever ever ever take a dancer home unless you are completely mad/ a…

Tim Barrus: New York Times: Explaining Death

Explaining the reality of death to a child also means explaining disease. The subjects of stigma and confidentiality are relevant. AIDS is not over. That people still die is rarely in the news. Even doctors still list other direct causes of death which can tend to make counting numbers bogus.…

Tim Barrus: Jonah’s Mountain

I am amused and sustained by the idea that the end of homo sapiens’ domination of the planet will be sooner than anyone suspected. The end is irreversible now. It is too late. Many scientists know. They give voice to this reality in private. What good would blowing whistles do.…

We Bury Our Own Dead

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WHEN DEATH IS BEST

I been voted to be the one who would write this about our little film WHEN DEATH IS BEST. I am not a writer. Writing sucks. I can barely spell. But I know stuff about HIV you do not know. HIV is a bitch to live with because you have…

When Death Is Best

In life, you can find yourself falling into situations that you don’t want to be in. Sometimes, that situation is life itself. We at Smash Street are using video to explore what this means and how it feels. The medical infrastructure that constitutes facilitating surviving both sexual exploitation and HIV…

Tim Barrus: The New York Times: Growing Old in America

Poverty is a cycle. It comes. It goes. It eats its young. It decimates its old. It is not unlike the people who inhabit it. Tara Parker-Pope’s statement in the New York Times: Getting older is inevitable (and certainly better than the alternative) stuns me. We are afraid of death.…