It’s a painful, haunting thing,

to know you’re going to die young.

Like in purgatory I sit lost, staring into nothing,

feeling strangely unconnected to the world I almost surely

will one day soon be severed from.

Five to eight days each month I feel much,

much closer to death than the weeks passed,

because as I curl up in a ball with almost unbearable pain,

I picture the virus in my blood turning to cancer;

tiny white bubbles multiplying on the walls of my cervix.

In my heart I know,

I will not bear a child.

I will not live to see my hands wither with age.

I will not be ripped suddenly from this life.

In return for the fate of death in my middle aged years,

I will be given the chance to say goodbye.

This does not calm my heart or stop my tears,

or take away the fear I will always feel inside.

I don’t want to die.