Everyone’s Covid19 Battle: A Poem For the Times We Live in
White rays through the windows,
It must be a new morning.
Still on my bed,
clearing my head.
Which day is it?
Time has frozen,
Days have blurred.
The only time that matters?
The days till the end of Circuit Breaker.
Coffee, coffee, coffee.
I have always loved it.
This important? Never.
Let it rouse my weary heart.
It’s 15 to the meeting.
I should be dressing up.
But no one’s looking.
Home clothes’s good.
I hear their voices.
I know their faces.
I can almost-
imagine the expressions.
I miss some people;
I don’t miss others.
Who I’d miss,
matters the least now.
All I’d see,
is my family.
We’d play master-chefs,
though we used to avoid pots and pans.
We’d emulate workout-gurus,
though we saw home as a resting sanctuary.
We’d role-play superhero,
as we honour the brave one who buys groceries on our behalf.
It’s something about the four walls,
burying us six feet deep.
This is our attempt-
at a insta-worthy quarantine;
at an injection of positivity,
into a world that lacks it.
Butterflies in my stomach,
beyond 12pm.
“As at 12pm, MOH has confirmed an additional…”
I take a huge breath.
I wish for the best.
Sometimes I’d celebrate.
Sometimes I don’t.
Don’t give me butterflies, gov.sg.
Not from you.
The one who should give me butterflies,
only reachable through a screen.
The pandemic ended -
the luxuries of a relationship
It also redefined what we consider as -
‘romantic gestures’
Delivery services to each other;
the new ‘Romantic’.
Also the new norm?
Stress.
Less things happen.
More weight on each.
Things I’d never sweat over,
I’d now beat myself up.
We’re now on the dark side,
but not for long.
The stress will subside.
The danger will pass.
The patients will heal.
The ones we lost,
will always be remembered.
We will gather again,
knowing what we’ve been through;
with a deep appreciation-
of how lucky we will be,
to be together.
Without distance.
