Still No Stopping Just as my body was ready for desire, AIDS crept into daily life, even into the hidden hinterland of West Virginia. I was terrified of sex before I knew what it was, what it could be. I was terrified of the red serpent I knew must slither through the woods waiting for me to be baptized in those intimate waters. All those years ago, such desires. And all these years later, still no stopping. Overwhelmed by attraction, my blood flowed inconveniently at the sight of women, the visions of men. I didn’t know I could separate pleasure and love and still be human. I grew up where religion was a disease, not a path to enlightenment. It got into an open wound and flourished in my body until I hated myself. I cocooned my fear, let it butterfly into self-destruction, all those unprotected nights, those at-risk days. Somehow, I’m still here. But so is that viper with its needle-sharp fangs, its venom in so many lovers’ veins. David B. Prather David B. Prather still lives a life of Sunday dinners and lawn mowing in Parkersburg, WV. He is the author of three poetry collections: We Were Birds (Main Street Rag, 2019), Shouting at an Empty House (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2023), and the forthcoming Bending Light with Bare Hands (Fernwood Press, 2024).
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November 2024
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