I see you sis

Today is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day!

As a woman living with HIV, I am here to let you know about some shit …

Look, society.

I’m siccud.

There seems to be the unwritten code of how a woman should conduct herself.

Women are supposed to be dainty and proper.

Women are supposed to have kids.

Women are supposed to throw down in the kitchen, leaving all of those who are graced by her magical seasoning skills with the itis.

Well, what if I hate being fucking proper?

What if I fart and curse?

Am I less a fucking woman?

Or what if I like sitting with my legs open?

Hell, I like spreading them for other reasons, too.

Annnnd let’s just say that my ancestors ain’t give me all their cooking recipes neither.

I be fucking some shit up.

I mean, we be eating

but it sure ain’t nothing worth posting about.

THEN, society said I gotta have babies.

You know, that’s the woman thing to do.

How complicated is that when you are a woman living with HIV?

That takes the insecurity of whether I am “woman enough” to a whole other level.

I remember feeling worthless.

In order to have babies, you have to have sex.

And who is going to want to have sex with someone who is living with HIV?

Let alone, unprotected.

Damn.

By this point I was really questioning myself

Am I even a woman?

Fuck that.

Hell yea I am!

And I’m not just a regular type of woman.

I am a woman who finds solutions to big problems

cursing and burping and farting along the process.

I am a woman who embraces her sensuality

with a mindfulness of when to spread my legs.

I am a woman who is not perfect

but my son thinks I am.

Sometimes, it even feels like I move mountains

no matter how bad my menstrual cramps are.

I schedule my tears for times when no one is around because I understand the role that I play, all too well.

We all do.

HIV or not.

On this day, I wish to acknowledge the fact that we are more alike than different.

Tip: Sis, get tested. See the doctor. Take care of YOU.

We are Woman.

We get shit done.

It ain’t no mold for this.

I big you all up this day.

What not to do: Don’t base your worth as a woman on what society says.

Fuck them.

And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

❤️

+ Ci Ci +