Tim Barrus Blog
Posts tagged with suicide
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Tim Barrus: Public School is Babysitting
What I see are kids who feel betrayed. Adolescents feel betrayed while mom and dad twist in the wind. Adolescents feel everything. A leaf blows in the yard. No summer school. Fear and loathing in family after family. Adolescents run away and no one knows what will happen next but…
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Foster Care In the NYT
I am a communist. I picked one of the most meaningless, ubiquitous, photographs I can find to illustrate the problem of foster care and murder. This is the kind of image government administrators use so when you read about what the fuck they’ve done gets obfuscated in procedure. All goodness…
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They Said It Was An Accident
this was no accident
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Boxers Bobbing About and Weaving
Drug dealers (can you, the drug dealers) please give it a break. But no. I was walking down Duval when two out of town (this is always the way it is in Key West) chicks pulled me into Sloppy Joe’s. Sloppy Joe’s Hoes, things get very dark, and so many…
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Going Rogue
I can’t look up again. And again. And again. If he wants to kill himself, he’s going to stop with all the threats, and do it. Whether I am there to see the sorry sight of it or not. Part of the fucking problem is the audience. Whether the reader…
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These End of Days
Farhad Manjoo at the New York Times wants you to be hopeful. Even when I do not agree with Farhad, I always admire his ability to write and make his thought-provoking points. The New York Times is refusing to publish anything from this piece in comments because I have broken…
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Sometimes They Go Back To Where They Lived
When many at-risk boys get kicked out of their home, usually because they come out to their families, fathers seem particularly threatened, the boy will surrender to the dramatic emotion of the moment, frequently leaving behind things they call, My Stuff. Whether they had a lot of stuff in their…
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Rabbit Hole
Boys with HIV kill themselves at rates eight times the rate of typical adolescents who attempt suicide. Children who kill themselves, kill themselves for a reason. And society recoils. The institutions of society need for the people in that society to want to stay. Or at least pretend to want…
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Tim Barrus in the New York Times
I work with boys at-risk who have HIV. People do not understand at-risk means a spectrum. Suicide is at the top of the spectrum. Boys and guns. The gun is an insurance policy if things get any worse than they already are. Often, they’ll hide the gun in their stuff…
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i know who u r
i know your kindness i know/ your scars i have some of those 2/ i know where you’ve been/ i know the smell of your shit/ i know your guts, and/ i know/ when you are giving up i do not want you 2 give up but it’s not up…
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Loving Boys At-Risk: Just Before the Cure
I am acutely aware of the fact that no one in a million years would dare to publish this. That does not mean I do not need to write it. I needed to write it. Yet I can see where it fits tightly into JUST BEFORE THE CURE which is…
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FireHead
I have asked the Smash Street Boys to bounce off a response I made to David Brooks in the New York Times. Brooks writes about suicide quite often. His work is excellent. This time, he is integrating the reality of AI into the examination of what makes people tick. Tick.…
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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…
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The Self-Sexualized Male Animal
Here’s what I know. I know this is not you. This is not even any of your second selves. I go along with the charade a lot. Especially when it’s all around me 24/7, and I am only one person. But I am not Audrey Hepburn, and I sure as…
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After the Rape is a Slow, Lonely Death, and a Grim-Visaged Dirge
It took him a long time to understand what had happened to him. Slow. Slow. It was as if he couldn’t blink. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t do anything. Slow. Slow. Ninety percent of the boys in the developed world who have been raped multiple times will…
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Video: Good Night Sleep Tight Don’t Let The Bed Bugs Bite
but narrower, the sanctum/ deep wells had never been your thing that was where the monsters lived/ in the dark dark no i said dark how dark was it fucking dark and i do not mean the lack of light the light was screaming fuck/ they are always watching your…
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Tim Barrus: New York Times
AIDS did not go away. There was no one to help. Or to listen. Caregivers. This was not going to be a vacation. This was not going to be just pop a little pill. Many people can pop that pill and they are fine. For some, the piggyback diseases are…
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Tim Barrus: The New York Times: Suicide
http://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/opinion/suicide-prevention.html?comments#permid=31069462 After they are dead, I will go into their rooms to smell them. As if to remind myself that each one is a separate individual. I put his pillow in my face and breathe him in deeply. I crawl naked into his bed. I finally sleep. The days after…
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writing about HIV and being sexually abused
I would liquidate my body But especially my ass That is what he always wanted I had to hold still While my mind screamed Squandering depreciation A pull upon the Pursuit of extortion If I told he would kill me It was not a joke He would kill me At…
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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…
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AIDS Dementia Will Kill You
We did not find him hanging in a tree. Dead. We found him hanging in a tree. Alive. Hey, little bird, fly away home, your house is on fire, and you children will burn. Timing is everything. Last night was Christmas eve. We could not find Joel. We never call…