• Home
  • About
  • Currently
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Recording
  • Hire
    • Services
  • Contact

Kehinde Thurman

What Kehinde Talking About?

#WorldAIDSday2012

December 1, 2012

A Nigerian child is cradled by arms
That may not be there tomorrow
And in the years that follow
She’ll be joined by millions
Of others
Whose mothers
Traded a virus
For school supplies
For tools to end her baby’s hunger cries
Numeric distortions
Give rise to pandemic disproportions
Her situation
Paints a direct correlation
Between AIDS—and poverty
If she can’t feed her family
She’s more likely to adopt other means
And it seems
Her power of negotiation
Is limited
She’s desperate
And the trick
He knows this
So he’ll ask for sex with no condom
And with outstretched hands
She’ll concede his demands
She only wants to feed her children
Unconscious choices
Muted voices
Span continents
And the silence
Is deafening

Meanwhile across the world
John attempts to explain to his favorite girl
He wasn’t homosexual
He just liked to sleep with men                                                                                                         and other women

Then again

He wasn’t hurtin’ anybody
Meanwhile
Antibodies
Crept like late night phone calls
And whispers behind closed doors
He’d waged a silent war
On her life
Her mind
Rewinds
To late nights
Of too much lust
And too much trust
Built on self esteem that was never high enough
Unconscious choices
Muted voices
Span continents
And the silence
Is deafening
#WorldAIDSDay2012

TAGS:2012AIDSHIVWorld AIDS Day
Share

You May Also Like

When Black Girls Are Left Sitting on the White House Steps; Sexual Assault, VAWA and Black Girls

January 22, 2014

It’s Not Such A Different World: On Why The Oscars Stay So White

February 29, 2016

In My father’s House: Olivia Pope, Black Women and Compartmentalization

April 8, 2016

Story Time – I Had a Baby When I Was 14

October 14, 2018
Previous Post
Murder Capital
Next Post
Families and the Fiscal Cliff

Instagram

View on Instagram

Copyright © 2020 Kehinde Thurman. All Rights Reserved. Website: MarkWalcott.com