WHO IS BEAK?

I am Beak.

Child of the Sixties, Party Animal of the Seventies, Stoned Age Hippy, Swinging Single.

        AIDS...

        Scary word isn't it?

Even scarier having it. 

Should have resisted temptation when I had the chance.

        Kay Sarah Sarah..

She was a beauty though... To bad I didn't know she was also a meth junkie.

What's it like? Knowing you have one of the deadliest diseases on earth?

        About like you would imagine.

The first half hour after I was told,, all I could do was sit there stunned, my Dr. as silent as I was. I didn't want to believe, yearning to deny it. If I hadn't just spent two months battling pneumonia, that nothing seemed to cure!

        AIDS..

    I was scared witless!!!

Yet I tried to keep going. To resume life as I had left it. Working my job to pay my own way...WRONG!!!

Growing weaker, I could no longer handle the rigors of construction. The only profession I had ever known. Imagine, finding you can no longer do the job you have excelled at for nearly thirty years!

    The building trades my life. 

Sick, hurting, constantly fatigued... I was finally forced to give it up.

    That's when depression set in...

                                                                ... Major Depression.

Even though I was receiving some help from the "Wyoming AIDS Project," my financial situation was getting worse, along with my health. 

At least once a day, I would find myself asking... What am I going to do? 

To which that little voice of bitter irony in the secret places of my mind would answer... Your going to DIE stupid.

    DIE...

The one word scarier then AIDS.

Depression, stress, dark thoughts of suicide brewing like poison. Broke, surviving on food stamps and charity. Unable to pay the bills. Unable to afford real medical care, it seemed life might as well be over. This reflected in my entire attitude... part of me wanted it to be over.

        What use going on?

I lost my appetite, dropped weight, became anemic, growing sicker by the day.

Little did I know... pneumonia still smoldered in my system, affecting my health as much as the virus that allowed it to hang on this way.

        Flare up...

I couldn't breath, could barely get out of bed. Losing more weight. Body unable to tolerate the meds.

        Dying...

My Doc urged me to go to the hospital, where I could receive better care; but unwilling to assume the financial burden, I refused...

                        ... Then he laid it on me...

Either accept hospitalization or contact a hospice, where I could drift comfortably into that long night.

        Wake Up Call...

Depression be damned!

I wasn't ready to give it up yet; no matter how terrible I felt.

Five days of test and needles... of IVs and transfusions. My system so screwed up; my bone marrow had stopped producing red blood cells. In essence a hemophiliac on top of every thing else.

Yet during that five days... I regained my will to go on... AIDS or no.

I didn't realize this consciously until I was talking with a nurse trainee... a young lady who asked me where did I find the inner strength to deal with the situation?

        My answer?        Life itself!!!   Pure stubborn human willpower!!!

Which I have in abundance.

So now I am home, still recovering. Yet I face my days with new determination to make the best of the time I have left. Be it five days or five years. 

        In that spirit...

I'd like to introduce you to my poetry... written in younger, happier time. Those wild 70's. When anything went. When Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll... ruled.

So if like me you lived thru those crazy times...

                            ... or if your just curious about the attitudes that came with such a hippy lifestyle...

        I Hope You Enjoy The Verse....

Feel free to read, download, print or share my poetry just please remember it is the essence of what is myself... My living memorial if you will... so please keep my name affiliated with it.

If you see fit or are moved to make a donation (Not to me but toward a cure, or the care of others whom may follow the same fate, pray it not be you or someone you know) please do so by contributing directly to Wyoming AIDS Project in appreciation of all the help they have given me, in times of fiscal problems of their own; or one of the other organizations found in the links section of this site.

Lastly I would also like to state that the views expressed in my poetry in no way reflect on any of the organizations I am trying to gain support for, the poetry is to entertain, the site is to bring awarness that when having sex... no matter what age... what gender.... what preferance... use wisdom, and as the site name infers...

                                ...THINK

Please refer to the red disclamer on the Home Page of this site for information on content and age restrictions.

All this said.... Here's to the 70's!

                                        Beak... May 2003