Love is a Road.

I came across this article today while sitting in an office waiting for another meeting. I think it is one of the most beautiful, raw, and moving poems I have read in a long time…I had to hold back tears as I read. So many thoughts came to mind as I read….
Strength. Hope. Forgiveness. Love. A Future. Identity. Worth. A Voice. New.

Springing from a poetry workshop, several HIV positive New Yorkers wrote down their deepest thoughts about their infections, and addressed the virus living inside them through poignant prose, poetry & song. Poet, singer & educator Nura Clara Sala has been HIV positive since 1993 and wrote a poem that focuses on her path to renewal and healing since her HIV diagnosis 16 years ago.

“I am walking the road. I have been walking this road for a long, long time.
And on this road, I give you back the memory in my genes of the women cut & mutilated.
I give you back the scream of the women in war who died in childbirth after being raped. And around the next bend as I walk, I give you back the father whose shadow fell looming across her 4-year old bed.
And even more recently on this road, I give you back the fists that hit her 14 year-old body.
And on this road, as I press my heels into the ground, I am not afraid to acknowledge that I hate him.
For from the wound pours the forgiveness, and this road becomes a flood, a river.
And I swim this road, not afraid to speak up, not afraid to sing.
I am not afraid to love.
I am not afraid to love my body with my heart, to reveal each petal one by one.
To reclaim the old tears as water for my garden, as the flowers along this path, as paint for my face, as bathing for my heart.
On this road, I am renewing from destruction.
I am healing from abandonment.
I am growing from degradation.
I am love.
I am receiving.
I am strong.
I am loving.
I am the new birth of the Earth from the core of my heart.
I will walk in red heels and be sassy.
I will walk in gold sandals and be royal.
I will walk barefoot over lava fields that pour into the sea and be a new creation, the fertile soil that brings life, flowers, and travel like a seed across the road of the wind.
I will plant myself in new continents, dress in skirts long and short and all the colors of the rainbow.
And the black sparkle of midnight winds through my voice as the Earth calls, ‘Come here! Come here! My arms are opening to meet you’.” 

-Nura Clara Sala.