A Poem by Roberto D. Barnes

I would like to dedicate this poem to TheBody.com, all the readers here and abroad living with HIV/AIDS in the community, to those who have lost family members, friends and loved ones to HIV/AIDS in the past years, and to my partner Antonio M. Campbell, who passed away three years ago.

May God bless all of you, your loved ones and TheBody.com for allowing us to express our deepest fears into words and helping us to overcome this transition with ease and acceptance to begin to live.

Fear of The Ultimate Reality

Nothing had brought me closer to life
than death itself,
and believing in The Ultimate Reality.

It was not just dying that frightens me,
it's living in a universal reality
that everyone has to accept.

I have gotten over the idea of dying of AIDS
and have started living.

Something has struck me, wasn't death itself,
but the fear of being alone and accepting it as a really.

I had found in myself the lack of confidence
of being born with a twin,
now dying alone
and trying to find the meaning for my departure.

The thought of death that I once knew
became a stranger to my being;
I felt some kind of sympathy for myself
and was amazed for feeling so.

I had come up with an idea,
if I wanted to get to know life again,
I would have to approach it in a way
that seems most comfortable to me.

If I died, and then reawakened,
maybe that fear of being a stranger to death
will disappear and I can become
less afraid of death and begin to live.