More to Me Than HIV

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More to Me Than HIV

First published in Gscene July 2020 For last years World AIDS Day I put together a public project of work joining other people living with an HIV+ diagnoses at Jubilee library.For last years World AIDS Day I put together a public project of work joining other people living with an HIV+ diagnoses at Jubilee library. For the project I spoke openly about my journey having being           Read more

More to Me Than HIV: GScene post Aug 2020

More to Me Than HIV is a project that aims to breakdown the stigma that has historically been attached to this virus.  When I saw my piece in last months Gscene to promote the More to Me Than HIV project, I was extremely proud, but a small part of me was filled with anxiety; but why should I feel this way? I have been on effective antiretroviral therapy since the Read more

More to Me Than HIV: first published in GScene July 2020

For last years World AIDS Day I put together a public project of work joining other people living with an HIV+ diagnoses at Jubilee library. For the project I spoke openly about my journey having being             diagnosed HIV+ 32 years previous. Back then there was no treatment and a lot of fear and misinformation concerning how HIV was transmitted. As such stigma was rife, Read more

insane

B is for Bonsai

Take a letter of the alphabet, write flash fiction within half an hour.
B is for Bonsai.

photo by afterorangecountry.comThe art of Bonsai has always been a passion of mine, the art of keeping something so delicate in a miniature state takes a real skill, not to mention patience and dedication. Gradual manipulation of limbs, breaking and resetting the natural will. It was these skills that came into their own fifty years ago.
My daughter is as delicate as a lotus flower, as was her mother, but alas her mother was too delicate too survive. It filled my heart with such sadness to know that my beautiful daughter would never know her mother’s love.
It was the shock that I could lose somthing so precious, so easily that made me realise I had to do all I could to protect my daughter.
Have you got children? Yes! Then you will surely understand why I had to do everything in my power to keep her safe.
Please take that look of your face, you are seeing things from the point of view of a world constricted with rules and regulations, but it is these very things precisely that have enabled me to keep my daughter safe. In all the years she has never had an accident and I in turn have never had need to worry.
I home study her, everything she needs to know about the world she has learnt through me.

I believe, deep down she has no understanding of her diffrences, as far as we are concerned her world is normal. Her world is defended against all the horrors that ravarge and steal.
It is my job as a father to protect her. In the beginning I just bound her feet. Yes, there was much pain for both of us, but I knew I was doing the right thing for my daughter. Despite her bound feet, she still managed to crawl around at great speed. There were times when I needed to leave her for lengths of time, further binding was the only answer. As with her feet, I broke and bound her hands, arms across her chest. I made the decision that my hands would be her hands, I would feed her, wash her, stoke the side of her face when she cried.
As time passed, she began to grow at an alarming rate, something that I knew would only bring misery to us both and so I bound her whole body.
It took a lot of patience for the final part of the process, but as with the Bonsai, dedication brought out the true beauty.
Each day I would help stretch her legs backwards, folding, until eventually they lay flush with her back.
Eventually she came to understand that she had no need to worry about anything, all she needed was me.

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