Kalel, 15

Kalel is 15, and sex is everywhere. People around him are touching, feeling, fucking. He learned everything about sex himself, because his body should be a temple and frank discussions about sex never really happen. Even in the space where discussion should be open, as in a literal confessional, there is only silence. Why talk about sex as if it were a sin?

Kalel is 15, and he is keeping a secret. His HIV stands out not like stigmata, but like the sores of a leper. It is ironic, considering that his messiah walked with the sick and marginalized, yet his modern day followers do the opposite. Things not discussed become things not understood, and misunderstanding gives in to fear. With fear, empathy diminishes and even disappears.

Kalel is 15, and the system has failed him. From a bureaucracy that doesn't care about him, to medical support systems that look  at only the biological side of things and not the psychosocial side, he wants to speak out, but cannot. Silence is thus forced upon him, even though he wants to talk.

Kalel is 15, and he has no one to turn to. He is trapped, suffocating, constricted by frames and frames-within-frames. His family is shaped by the same prejudices that shaped him, and they are wrapped up in their own problems. His secret keeps him away from his peers. He turns to the last support system there is, his own faith, but the men who claim God's word for themselves shun him, as a problem to be swept away, a secret to be kept under wraps. He cannot live in the house of God, because he is a reminder of sin in more ways than one. He is alone.

Kalel is 15, and he should be living life, loving others, and doing things kids his age normally do. But we have failed him in so many ways, because we live in a world where we are not encouraged to speak.