Like many of the youth in the hood, I grew up fast, exposed to the entire elements of the psychological aspects of the street life. The street activities had become the main source of my education. A university in a sense, that offered vocational trades to anyone who expressed the desire of participating.
There wasn’t any prior level of education required and no institution to be paid, just one's own desire to learn the craft. I chose the course that every other kid in a poverty-stricken neighborhood would have chosen, hustling 101. I quickly breezed through the course and began earning credits like one would to receive their college degree. I had chosen to seek out a Master’s in pushing drugs. I earned my college credits by the street recognition of my wealth. Crack cocaine and methamphetamines was the choice of drug in demand in the hoods. The money flowed in fast, while my morals went out the window.
I was becoming the big dope man I inspired myself to be, and with my newfound status, I began flossin’, splurging and indulging in the street life recreations that quickly became an addiction.
I inhaled fine contents and guzzled down large quantities of liquor on a daily. That was only a part of my madness. I start having sex with every young honey that had a butt and a pretty face that crossed my path with inviting eyes. I also on the DL would often creep off to do a little trickin’ with a fine smoker or meth-head who would sell their body for a hit when they had no other means to purchase the drugs. There was nothing unusual about my daily activities because it was the norm among the street thugs and drug dealers. We called it handling our business.
This business I call myself handling I come to find out was more dangerous and deadly than playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun. The business that I never took the time out to re-evaluate before entering into the deal without security had became my judge that would sentence me to death among the living for my ignorance, my selfishness, my greed, my lust, my ego and my craving for a few minutes of pleasurable feelings of sex.
I could only wish a hopeless one that time would rewind and allow me the opportunity to make better life choices then I had. I could only pray that the death sentence from a disease that has no cure didn't take my life sooner than later. I could only wonder which one of my many sexual partners infected me with the disease. I also wondered how many of my sexual partners I infected during the course of my unawareness of being HIV positive? I can only imagine. I never wore condoms and never once asked any of my sexual partners to wear one. The street life or my homies didn’t school me to this part of the game, to the risks that come along with having unprotected sex.
I now feel that the game, the streets, and my homeboys have robbed me of my life before I had the chance to live. Why? Because of the lack of educating me to the deadly risks that awaits to claim a new soul like mine through unprotected sex, but the fact still remains, I have been sentenced to death among the living by my own ignorance, my own lack of education, my own desires and my own freedom of choice to make life decisions. So don’t be like me, stay HIV & AIDS free. Unprotected sex can make you another victim and ghost just like me.