November 28, 2003

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

21.

Writers' group beyond 'the' AIDS story

tells of lives

by Sue Doerfer

We've all heard "the story" of AIDS. Typically, a white, gay, middle class young man is in the last few weeks of his life, surrounded by his lover and supportive family. His death is at home, beautiful and heartbreaking. We are all sad to learn of his passing.

But we know: This is only one of the stories.

Where are the stories of the African American young heterosexual women, the sagas of the men over 55 who are living with HIV, the details about the gay men who die alone, without a lover, rejected by family? We haven't heard nearly enough about living in poverty, about being homeless, about struggling with HIV and other illnesses simultaneously, about medication fatigue the more common, everyday realities of AIDS.

This spring, the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland began a new group for HIV positive writers. The group is co-facilitated by Nancy Boutlier, published poet and journalist, and Sue Doerfer, LISW, the Taskforce's clinical director of services.

Writers of various levels of experience participated, and the group found that it was fun and therapeutic to share ideas and thoughts with one another. Later, after sharing our poems and essays with each other, the group got brave enough to have a few public readings. As we conclude our second eight-week session, the group is planning to introduce a new session in January that will be open to participants who are infected with and affected by HIV. In addition, the Writing Group has been invited to participate in the Many Voices, Many Lives project and to collaborate on a public reading event with the Women's Re-entry Writers Group.

We have only begun to tell our stories; we invite you to be brave enough to listen:

Untitled

As I feel forgotten

Exiled from the embrace of love

I long for a feeling of affection

The loneliness tortures me

heart

I yearn for the touch of one Who does not desire my Yet they do not understand

I long for your caress My lips ache for the kiss I

Never had a chance to give

I

gaze

and admire your

Smooth high yellow skin

And imagine us

Nude rubbing skin to skin

Kissing you passionately

And gently caressing your face

As I stop and gaze

Into your soul I feel

Suspended in time and

Space everything stops

Including my heart I feel warm

And overwhelmed with joy But yet I am jolted back

To reality as my imagination

That Kid, That Man

From the beginning

-Dante Ford

I never thought I was just that kid Normal schools could never retain me Normal friends were not even a thought

Normal things had to be exaggerated Nothing was meant to be normal

So that kid smoked herb

That kid-skipped school

That kid chose a different life-style

That kid turned heads

That kid never laid in beds

That kid didn't normally take his meds

As time went on that kid

That kid became that man

Why Me?

When you declare, "I could never do that" do you imagine me sitting in my office

holding the hand of a grateful man washing away our eyes filled with tears

at the horror *of it all

spending my days walking the hallways of

sorrow listening to the last wishes of the

dying?

What you don't know is how many moments of

laughter, giggling and sick humor I have spent

with the others

I share my hallways with.

The privilege of spending hours completing

reports, meeting

deadlines and worrying about the variance of my budget. The politics of who is who and who is me and how I present myself. The endless negotiations and the memos I write

re: your time sheet is late again.

All of this and

more of the mundane mixed with the rare tears.

The sorrow I have buried so deep that it cannot be unloaded.

I am not the good girl, the special one you imagine me to be.

I ask "why me" more

often than I'd like to admit.

Why me? chosen to witness the

stories holding them aware of the responsibility of never forgetting.

Why me? given the honor of holding

the hand in the last

precious moments

Why me? with the demands

of too many

too much

weight

too many words

so many

names that I want to

scream at the heaviness of

it all. Of you all.

Why me?

Leave me

alone. Please don't

leave me.

Give me your Story.

Please don't expect too much

from me.

Sometimes I'm tired. So tired.

Yet I'm

alive and my

cells haven't turned

to T

so I don't get

to rest

or declare I've had

enough or I'm ready

to go.

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And that man realized

That kid had goals

But as that man thought

He realized that the only reason that kid

made that man

Is because that kid had artistic desire

That somehow empowered a movement of respect

For people too talented to even accept

But as I stand before you as that

Singing, acting, dancing, fashion designer

As that

Full time man, with benefits know to blow your mind But as I say this for the last damn time

That kid is that man, who stays poetically in your mind Give respect when respect is due

Because that kid is that man

And that man is right here in front of you

-Franklin Williams

At 35 I felt

guilty for outliving you.

Please send me

That day in May came

and went with

a sense that

I'm not quite

worthy.

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Why me?

Sue Doerfer

Expiration date Name Mailing Address

Sue Doerfer is the clinical director of services for the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland.

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