In honor of World AIDS Day 2009, I am publishing a poem I wrote in the Spring of 2004 about this subject. The language and tone is a little strong but this is one my favorites.
Living or Dying? ©Adrienne Pomeroy
It was only yesterday that everything was normal and healthy
I spent my carefree days dancing in cruddy bars with random, nameless men
One shot
Two shots
Three…
The hour that I strutted “home” to the beckoning of a perfect stranger
Only to wake up at noon
And start the wild cycle over again…
10 years later I’m no longer the bar bitch tempting handsome thirty something’s with my mysterious features
You see, it was one of those tempted men that poisoned me
With this
Disease
That for the past 5 years
Has been eating away at my immunity
Even when it’s not hungry
A decade ago, I had enough T-cells to fight off a sneeze
Now, I barely have enough to get out of bed
All these damn drugs
There’s a new one every minute
I consume them as if they were candy
Red, orange, yellow sometimes even baby blue and pastel pink
The chalky taste that leaves an afterglow in my mouth
Has become almost bearable
My doctor tells me that one day we’ll find the right combo
His eyes tell me different
My eyes agree
So I go on with this shortened life
Instead of dancing in bars
I prance among old, dusty rickety bookshelves
And wait in the endless line of faces to drink a latte
Occasionally I’ll find a book
On my disease
It tells me nothing new
It doesn’t tell you how the random spouts of pain want to make you
Hang yourself just so you won’t feel it anymore
It doesn’t tell you that you can’t be yourself
It doesn’t tell you that your former friends will stop calling
It doesn’t tell you that your life is forever changed
A complex has been developed
I don’t know if I am
Living or dying
Or both
All I know
Is that I didn’t ask to be poisoned
All I asked was to be
Loved…
©2009 Adrienne M. Pomeroy
