Akeem Olaj Martin

The diagnosis of HIV could lead to radical shifts in perspective;  internally and how others view you. The writing begun with exploring ways to reconcile those shifts that could be damaging(people thinking and commenting that someone with hiv will die soon or that they are a danger to people regardless of medications, etc.) The exploration ended with flipping those negative opinions and snap judgment of other’s into a source of unhuman strength.

Truth about vampires

Vampirism–
normally depressing folklore in medieval times to explain how a dead body decomposes
Explains why the body bloats and looks well feed
Why the gum line recedes; making the teeth look like they’ve grown as if it was alive

In medieval times
if someone died, they were constantly checked to make sure they stayed that way
No one knows how the first vampire was created
It’s just assumed it involved a bite and a lot of blood

Someone bit me in January 20 20
And No one checked on my body to see if I was still alive

Everyone assumed I was dead
which is the same as saying

“I’m fine “

So, when people see my resting death stare…they tell me to “be happy”

They do not know that I am HIV Positive
So, their “be happy” feels
like holy water on my skin

Do not know
a monster
I called lover
fed me their blood,
killed me in my sleep and held me with death until the sunrise
Do not know my doctor has told me I’m becoming a walking corpse

People think I’m healthy
But they can’t see the anxiety of deciding whether to tell your date that they are dining with the living
dead

They are not present when I take my daily meds but wish I was dead instead
Wish I can be a cremated alive, become a burning thing
Cashier at the grocery store says that
If I don’t put a smile on my handsome face
she won’t let me check out a thing

Guess she wants to see if my teeth are still growing
Or she thinks
a smile is something that comes easy like breathing
or death

I guess a smile
Will make her a little bit more comfortable with my sadness

So I’m going to talk about happiness now

Talk about how I was a human being once

About how this everyone I tell switch their view of me to a demon with hell in his veins
How stigma will make you lose your entire life and switch States and

Because of this optical shift

I Haven’t told my mom yet

Know that she’ll be too afraid to invite me pass the threshold of her home
Told my sister
now she looks at me like she’s looking at a ghost
Like she’s scared that one day
I’ll get tired of resisting and take a bite out of someone’s neck
Or I’ll get tired of living and drive a stake through my own chest

So call me this dead thing
Call me

a vampire

And know when you see me, you’re witnessing resurrection
Witnessing a man that can’t stare at his own reflection
But he’s still alive

Every day I
Thank God for my medication and I can walk in the sunlight without bursting into flames and i am still
alive

Every morning
I wake up in my casket… of a body
And I am still Alive

Now
Isn’t that just about the happiest folklore…
You’ve ever heard