The Normal Heart

I watched over 1,000 people die on stage today -
probably over 5,000, still being just the tip of the iceberg
of an oncoming storm we couldn't fathom or properly predict -
And all of them embodied in the one young man I watched
be wheeled away, outstretched and cold on that black gurney.

Three weeks ago I'd received the phone call:
"I have it. I'm positive."
And suddenly the understanding of what it all means
becomes more present, now a more urgent part of you because
you "know somebody."
And while neither he, nor I by proxy, will ever need
to know the kind of fear and death our ancestors faced,
my heart still clenched, my lungs deflated, and
I listened to the small voice and the tears of a friend
I might as well have called my brother,
telling me he knew he'd still be okay,
that he'd been doing his research,
Telling me a full 10 years after last I saw him,
10 years since we'd come out to one another,
10 years after I had held him and told him I
would help him find out what all of this meant,
taking him under my wing.

Ten years later and I watch this story,
of our family's terrifying past, unfolding in this
theatre of weeping memories - everyone seems
to know someone with it or is hiding it him or herself -
and I wonder, too, if I had been more informed,
if I had been more aware, more constant - would
he be facing this, or facing it alone?

And you have to know that I couldn't help but
think of you, too, as I watched two lovers at the moment
one was taken.
Think of you and every other man to whom
I ever and will ever consecrate my life -

Because I am and always will be the one
to stand beside and hold the hand of him I love,
through cold, through rain, through fire.
I am the constant, I am the keeper, I am the one who'll stay,
like he who, when asked
"What did he die for?"
can stand tall and proclaim
a love that proves that death is not in vain.

And all I thought was you
and how I hope and wish you well and safe,
since you won't let me near you
to say it to your face.

And even while I cried and held myself together, then,
I know that many, many millions more men, women, and children
join the ranks of the dead both before and after
the moment caught for us to witness,
all being rolled away from view
as the lover says goodbye beneath
that glowing image of a single, red ribbon
left for us to take away,
encouraging us to live, to fight, to breathe,
to love, survive, and help to heal
the world so many, many hateful voices
tried so hard to keep us from imagining.