Fighting Through

I am still locked in this battle

of scraping

out a life while 

trying to fold in

almost 20-different medications;

some to keep back a 17 year old

dance with the disease

a few still call a cleansing act from God

to weed out the Forsaken,

capsules to help stop the shakes,

nerve damage, muscle atrophy 

and traffic pile-up stabbings

of pain

left over as I moved 

from pill to pill

(some say),

or the virus has become

an out of control

whirling dervish,

crashing inside me

and not bothering to pick up

any table, ligament

or lamp

off the floor.

And even this setting

has become old,

and all the plot-points

now stale

and borderline cliche

when people ask

how I am,

and I forget 

I do not need to be honest,

just happy that they

remembered my name.

My legs tripped up on me

(or simply took a break

from working)

so now I have 

one more gash on my forehead

that will probably

turn into yet another scar

(and maybe a couple 

cracked/broken ribs

to hammer any questions

or denials into 

tiny, precious pieces 

scattered into dust

scattered into an objective wind)

that I will have to explain away

when the concerned ask.

Anyways. . . . . .

{I spent most of this night watching old video blogs on Rosie.com, wondering if the poem really ever got to her. If she read and enjoyed it simply, without thinking that any

attempts/thoughts of "big breaks" were attached, or if I should have told her that

it was the first real poem that I had created in a year, and how much hope that gave me.}

{But we all have more important things in our lives, ya know. Right now, I am just on a slow upward climb over medications and infections to get to mine. And today, I want to climb. Today I want to feel my body and mind stretch and strain as I show anyone who might look that today, today I choose to accept and fight against these so-called "strikes." Today I cannot think of things like Surrender. I have seen all those who surrendered, and I think some got their panels added to the NAMES quilt this year."}

{There is still so much of me that I do not like: choices, actions, things I have done or said and the shame of it all makes the tears burst out of me and Gravity send me to my knees. I have had mornings when I cannot face the world with a body full of aches and pain and night sweats, so I do my damnedest to separate from reality by retreating into my apartment and staying away from things like hygiene or getting dressed.}

{And I still cannot look into a mirror and see the "handsome and sexy (other's words, not mine)" others compliment me about. . . But I am trying.}

{God help me, I am going get a life back before any "crumbling of dirt," or "folding of cloth."}

Another Damn Season!

Another damn season haas gone past me, and instead of pining all melancholy-like, and scribble about aborted poetic images lying strung around me like some DC supervillan right before a miracle save knocks him on his ass.

I cannot think of any real sort of half-way normal title.

I swear to God 

that I did not 

see the leaves

change 

to that festival of colors 

my imagination 

would wait for

until I watched the 

Peanuts show this Halloween.

Is that bad?

Does that mean 

that Fall is tripping up

and fading away

or are the drugs 

just making me lazy?

This Is A Test

Too many months now. .

I have felt like I am scratching my way out of some cage. . Whether that is a cell made out of the newest pharmaceuticals, or a cage of disease, maybe even that pit of fear the cliche-makers always skitter about. . .

My sleep is so scattered, and now it is the end of August. Another season has passed by without any poetry; without an account on how Nature has touched the things and people and creatures I see, know, and love.

I am so sorry. I regret taking the "easy" choice in deciding to have no pain through medication. . . .

The Time Has Come. . .

During the past couple of months, I have been getting some answers from all these medical tests (MRI, X-RAYS, you know the drill) I have sat through. It seems that my early years of HIV are again coming back to haunt me. . .

During my first three to four years of being positive, I volunteered for a few drug studies as my way of helping "make a difference" (and since the various drug companies were paying for everything, I felt that I was saving taxpayer dollars too).

I was considered drug-study "naive," because I was not on any medications yet, and I think that is why I was in the "control" groups for a couple of them (I would find out what group I as slated in at the end of the study), so I only took placebos and AZT most times.

I am sure AZT has its uses, such as preventing the spread of HIV from a mother to her unborn child (last I heard, it cuts the rate to less than five percent, but I may be a little off), but as with many drugs for the treatment of HIV, AIDS, and many, many other illnesses and conditions, no one has done any sort of long-term study or whatnot on the effects of these new "wonder drugs."

All I know is that at the age of 35, I was diagnosed with Osteoperosis, and later had others conditions (like neuropathy) morew akin to nerve degradation. . .

Anyways, I have a degenerative disc in the lowest part of my spine, and along with that (and possibly in relation to) a small bit of bon is jutting out from the spin and may also be pinching on a main nerve.

If I stand longer than 5-15 minutes, my right leg begins to go painfully numb, as if it is decaying while still attached. Sometimes it is my left leg, and one it was both, but mainly it is my right,

So now I have a cane. Even though it looks very very cool. It haunts me. Thes are the changes that I feared. The ones that kept me withdrawn into myself.

Thers are so many times that I wish I did not see my best friend, Mikel die. Even though I know each person/patient is different and all that, but you cant hekp but use him a a gauge sometimes. . .

UGH!!!

I am getting so damn frustrated trying to figure out how to either send Rosie the damn poem, or find out if she got it and just does not have the time to write back to everyone she gets something from. I know things are tough all over, and she has a plateful of things too, but geez. . . . And here I am acting like she has a duty or something.

But really, I just want to know if she liked it.