Hey HIV

I want to say so many things to you -- maybe curse at you, maybe tell you how much you hurt my body, mind and soul.

You have lived inside of me since I was 16 years old! You thought you were going to destroy me didn't you? As you did to so many friends and people that were family!

You thought, Oh she has always been told she's a nothing and will never amount to nothing ... so she might just take her own life, destroy it with drugs or destroy others by giving it on purpose out of hate and bitterness. But no!!!!! You never won, never will win!

Because I am one of those people that have been through it all, and still manage to have a pure soul and good spirit. So you actually helped me. Thank you HIV ... Thank you from the bottom of my heart because you actually formed me and changed the little girl and teenager that was full of hate, an uncompassionate, angry kid that didn't have any direction but to do bad things, and felt so worthless that she had to find the worst to feel the best! That is why I joined that gang: because I felt that I actually was going to have a family after all! Until you found, or I let, the opportunity for you to come and invade my blood.

I always felt I would die, max, by the age of 28. It was written that someone with HIV/AIDS wouldn't live for more than 10 years!

You actually saved my life ... because of you, HIV, I am alive and loving myself and my body more. Because of you I met my partner and some wonderful people in this journey we call life! 23 years have passed and I always describe it as a murderer living with you that is finding every opportunity to kill you. You are a sneak and very smart! But I am smarter than you are, HIV. I have managed to dodge death many times because of my human instincts. You have destroyed my immune system to make me weak and vulnerable.

Enough!!! Leave me the fuck alone bitch!

I am tired of you and being your poster child, just because I am trying to go out there and show my pretty face to save the youth or anyone who wants to listen.

I can't wait until they kill you, and you leave all of us alone!

So many people have suffered because of you, HIV. You should feel like a cornered animal that is about to get smashed! And that time is coming soon! How does it feel huh?

Just because it took something as nasty as you to change my self-worth doesn't mean you are important! Because you are not.

30 years of dealing with you! Of you killing our brothers and sisters, making so many suffer not only physically but mentally.

Hey HIV, I know that just by someone protecting themselves you can't come in. But you see some people still don't get it. They think living with you is freaking easy!

I am tired of taking toxic pills because of you!

I am tired of getting so many tubes of blood taken every 3 to 4 months because of you!

I am tired of thinking, Is my medication still working? Am I developing resistance???

Tired, tired, tiredddddddddddddddd of you, HIV!

Get the Hell away from all of us! We don't want you or need you to make us feel worth something, or to feel we have a purpose! We can find other things in life besides you, HIV!!!

And I believe this life sentence, or life on parole, of living with you is going to end soon.

I just hope your friends, the ones that have made billions and billions on us, will have the humanity and instead of making better medication so you and we can live in more harmony together, they can find something to get you the Hell out of my being, HIV.

You are not welcomed here! Never were, never will be! And I will fight you until my last breath.

And again I am sorry for whoever is reading this and has to read this cursing. But you. HIV/AIDS ... you are a bitch! You will always be a bitch and that will never change!

Always remember, everyone: One mistake and HIV will live with you forever. :( You don't want that.

So please: Test yourself, protect yourself and love yourself!

Don't be one more statistic.

Love and light to you all ... not you, HIV!

Maria T. Mejia

This blog entry was written for and cross-posted from The Body's Write a Letter to HIV campaign. Find out how you can be part of this campaign, and write your own letter to HIV.