The Human Touch 2013 - University of Colorado Denver

I Don’t Remember ...
Nicole Arevalo
HIV in the 80’s
Denise E. Canby
I don’t remember you, the person lying dormant within a shell of unpolished stone
cracked with disuse.
You used to torment me perched atop my mind. Your legs swung to and fro with the
attempt to crush the soft membrane with your cumbersome weight.
I don’t remember how I allowed your acrid words to affect my posture, my will and
my dreams.
Your voice was always in the background, but I gave each word power over my
emotions, my life, my independence and my world.
You tried to devour my life. Now you sleep within my thoughts. Now I possess
strengths that keep your malicious remains in exile.
I banished you there to the cold waters while courage and perseverance burn the
stench of you away.
Year by year, the memory of how you reveled in my defeats, angered by my victories,
fades into the void of the past.
Soon you will fi nd no voice remains, having been stripped naked of your power. You
are reduced to ash, lifted by the invisible weight of who I have become.
You crumble to nothing before my heated stare, penetrating your fl esh as you once
did to me.
I don’t remember you, the voice within us all that says you can’t grow, can’t evolve,
can’t change, can’t become. •
You’re a good Dad,
I tell him.
We don’t see many Dads
here.
He shows me pictures:
A robust man of muscle
climbing a rock face.
His son before AIDS.
“He’s not like these guys,
you know.
He’s a good kid.
Got it from a lady;
so many girlfriends.”
I feel like I know his son.
I tell him this,
we make a plan.
Next visit
I will take a break.
Leave the clinic.
Meet this wonderful
terribly sick son.
Months go by.
He never comes back.
The sinking feeling begins.
How far did this man disappear
To begin his story again.?
A photo of himself tucked in his pocket. •
PG 92
PG 93