"Beautiful Mosaic" by Kareemah El-Amin
 

Bright with the woven tapestry of story
Vivid molecules
Multiplying to a fevered dance of subtraction
One plus one
Plus one plus
One
Minus................one thousand

You congregate in matter
A legion of lesions
Dry cough
Persistent
Shrinking elasticity
Unable to feast on the multitude of life
Though famine was never your entreaty

So tired, so very tired
What is this day?
What is my name?
Who among you shall I blame?
Why did this happening, happen to me?
I just want to be.........left alone
Though I yearn, desire, fear
Being lonely

Abstract vicissitudes
Fake platitudes
Unabashed attitude

I WANT TO BE FREE

No more H.I.V.
Though in my mind
 I can clearly see

H.appiness
I.noculates
V.iral load

The headline reads
Giving humanity to an acronym of deficiency
Exposing the shame of secrecy
Now dignity, family and community
Is returned to me
Once stolen for the miserable price of my sanity

Touch me
Kiss me
Love me
Why didn't I protect me?
What should have been, is miserable company
Undeserved guilt is killing me softly

So, here I stand
Naked with humility
Vulnerable with need
 I ask these simple things

When I smile
Smile back at me
When I laugh
Laugh with me
When I cry
Shed no tears for me
When I die.....as we all will one day
Please remember who I am
Not the disease that has taken me