WRITER’S NOTE: I want to dedicate this poem to my brothers-at-heart. To you dearies – Dubem, Bobby, Temi-D and every LGBTIQ person on here who knows what truly it means to stay awake all night with questions tumbling-rollercoaster-avalanching in your head with no forthcoming answers, only to meet the dawn with the despairing signs of voluntary vigil. To you living positively, it can’t get any worse than this.
Tell me I will be fine
Tell me it’s alright to cry, to let the tears spill over like the flood in Noah’s day
Tell me to be strong because all this is just for a moment
Tell me it’s okay to go down the very depths of Hell and burn
Because like fine molten brass, I will arise shinier
Tell me that slowly, I am not losing this war
Letting you take the upper hand, be proclaimed victor in hushed whispers around closed caskets
Tell me
Please tell me…
Why are you silent?
Tell!
For with the tell-tale signs sparged over my body, I know you can speak
Tell me that I will very soon find love in the heart of the One
The arms of he that will make all this pain feel like a bad dream
Gone with the warmth of a touch, a smile, a sparkle in his eyes
Tell me that you are just a visitor staying no longer than you are welcomed
Tell me it’s ok to feel stigmatised
But like dew drops on the moist morning leaf, it should roll right off me
Tell me my anger at Dada and Ma is right to be founded on their bigotry
I implore you . . . Please tell!
That we can make the most of this situation
Working out of this blood-walk unscathed
Tell me I won’t burn in hell when this frail being maybe cannot anymore hold
Tell me, please tell me
Because knowing will to this yearning heart halfway bestow a healing balm
Please tell . . .
Written by Pisces
take your meds. learn from your mistakes. you’ll be alright.
Why do I find both this post and this comment mildly irritating?! ?
Lol. Well, have u decided why you find them mildly irritating? Care to share? 🙂
The thing about the stigma is, sometimes, overcoming self-stigma is not helped when you come under the scourge of public stigma.
HIV a disease worse than the rest? Thats the type of mind set that keeps people afraid and stigmatized. Its a shame ppl still think that way, when information is just a click away.
@Adey, for some weird reason, I sort of share ur feelings too, particularly about the above comment.
Adey, maybe because it simply is irritating. I cringed when i read it.
A corporate climber’s worst nightmare…
That moment when you get the job and have to go for medicals and HR goes quiet on you afterwards.
Despite the public stigma, the stigma that must be first overcome is that of self-stigma.
To everyone everyone who bears this cross, daily doses of strength and courage I pray thee
You know all this despair and chagrin does nothing but alleviate your immune system? I almost died from Malaria last year, I’m positive i would have. Someone i know died from Typhoid fever recently. So stop beating yourself over because you have HIV, when this isnt the 80s. This is life, things like this happen, stop wailing and writing sad defeatist poems and take this challenge head on! Everyone has their own cross to bear, and their own set of problems. So you are not unique in any way because you have this virus.
What doesn’t kill you, can either make you stronger or leave you writing sad depressive poems. You choose
Diablo… Its not easy bro!… Just like everyone learnt Been A Homosexual to be a demonic and worst sin, so did we get to learn that HIV is a disease worst than the rest!… We already have that feeling about it.. It would only take the brave to understand and live with the fact that he or she is like that already.