Undetectable
The nurse said a word today that I want to keep. I am ending the worst year with it.
Blood test on Thursday, result today, and the nurse, who now looks at me every time and calls me by a name that is not mine which we both know is not mine, said: undetectable. She showed me the paper. A number so small it was written as less-than. She said, do you understand what this means, and I said tell me anyway, and she said: you cannot give it to anyone. Not to anyone. And your life is your life.
I sat on the bench with the malaria poster for a long time.
This was the worst year. I have not written the worst thing in it and I never will, here. But I want the year to end on this page, with this word, because I think it matters what a year ends on. Something was done to me. The police threatened me for it. A piece of paper called me positive. And I took a pill every night at nine, under a stain shaped like Imo State, for one hundred and sixty-one nights, and today a woman on the Aba road told me I cannot hurt anyone and my life is my life.
Undetectable. It is not a beautiful word. I am going to keep it anyway. Merry Christmas, notebook. We made it to the harmattan.