A diary of isolation

Day One

With no malice or discomfort or regret,

I know I must try to leave this place,

Once this is all over,

And I can,

Even if I don’t know where I am going or why.

This is a place of the past,

That I cannot access,

But will always trickle through me.

It was beautiful and taught me much,

But I can access it no longer,

Only remember it in a rosy light,

Like the fiction of someone else.

Day Seven

I’m not sure what I expected,

Of the world proclaimed each night on the news,

As barren and infested with danger.

Perhaps this is a little of what it feels like,

To see your country on foreign news,

When they tell tourists not to go,

And you think they must see,

Something you cannot,

When you venture out for milk.

Did I expect to be arrested,

And frog-marched back,

To my parents for the rebellion,

Of going out for such a frivolity?

Did I expect only the most needed,

The most important in our society to be out?

Is that who they assume I am now?

It all seems the same.

A little lighter, maybe.

I saw someone in my old school uniform,

Trudging home.

I forgot the schools don’t close until Friday.

The last bastion, I suppose.

I saw someone smiling, broadly.

Isolation and constant, unyielding news is such that you learn to forget,

That the reaction of your house,

Of your plastic bubble,

May not be the reaction of all.

I work from home,

It is no different than normal,

But it is the idea of being caged by contagion that changes us.

Day Ten

I thought perhaps,

People would avoid touching things,

Or people.

Looking even,

To avoid even conversation,

About it.

An easy excuse for downcast eyes.

I found myself thanking the little green men,

For lining up so perfectly,

So I didn’t have to press the button with my gloved hand.

And yet,

The birds seem to sing more triumphantly,

The air seems more heavily scented,

With sweet green,

An industrial kind of nature.

I enjoyed watching people,

Doing something normal and moving,

After watching only the still walls and frantic news for so long.

Day Fifteen

I guess this is truly,

What they like to call,

A time of uncertainty.

Everything said,

Everything promised,

Is no longer believed.

Plans do not mean plans,

They are probably-not’s.

And yet,

We do not change our vocabulary of promises.

Even though nothing can be planned,

Or promised,

Or predicted.

It is strange to distrust,

The plan but not the person.

The time is uncertain,

Not untrustworthy.

Day Twenty-One

It must be opportunity.

That is what is expected.

That is what it should be.

That is best.

It feels like an extended, forever snow day.

And yet,

In this, I am still at school.

It is only everything else that is now prohibited.

I have just started enjoying,

All these things that we can no longer do,

That people took for granted.

And now I am back here,

In this place that was,

Just starting to be temporary,

Rather than a prison.

I should be seizing it all,

But the transition is tricky.

Day Twenty

I dream,

Of spotless museums,

Gleaming white and full of light and gods.

I dream,

Of the perfect bone-white marble foot,

Of Poseidon or Zeus,

With the underside sparkling,

And facing me,

As if to say -

Look! See how even the bottom of my foot,

That has walked the earth and heavens,

For millennia,

Is as smooth and flawless,

As a new-born peach.

Day Thirty

It is unprecedented times,

They keep saying,

As if we should appreciate,

Savour and take mental notes,

Of the history,

We are experiencing,

For the questions of future generations.

They say to call it a plague,

To get people to take it seriously,

But for every person,

Not taking this seriously,

There are four more,

Doing more damage in their panic.

We are not a nation of the serious.

People do not respond with reason.

People are in one extreme or the other,

Always.

Day Twenty-Nine

There remains a dry patch,

Of spiky pain,

And hot soreness,

On the back of my neck,

Despite my constant rubbings and ointments.

I cannot see it,

And I do not try.

I do not try,

To glance or gaze or stare,

At my own image at all.

I do not think it best.

I know I will not find answers there,

Or inspiration,

Or a solution,

Or an ending,

That fits and is true,

I can gaze,

I guess,

But it will not serve me.

Day Forty-Eight

We have been given a gift,

In a way.

The gift of the excuse.

Or rather the gift to invert the excuse,

From a meh to a why not?

Denial can be a destination,

To wallow in,

Or it can be an excuse,

For change and experimentation.

The experimentation you were too scared,

Or too comfortable,

To indulge in.

It is frightening and confronting,

To be alone with oneself,

And to have the excuse,

Inverted on you,

But it would be childish now,

To be more scared of trying than dying.

Day Fifty

It is the drying up of possibilities,

That before I would not take or seek,

But only imagine.

That is the worst of it,

In truth.

And I am glad of that.

Not really the fear and the suffering,

Of others,

Or the abandonment,

Of the skin to skin.

Sad, I know.

Selfish and uncaring, I suppose.

It has taken the linch pin of reality,

From my imaginations.

My only hope is that it will leave me,

Hungry for more reality than before.

Day Never

I fear I cannot escape,

Those who cannot understand.

I fear I cannot bear,

For them to understand.

I soothe myself,

With the thought that I have here.

That I can be separate here.

That I am allowed here.

How can such an independent person proclaim,

Such wretched, constant unity.

Nothing can exist,

Unless it is before her eyes.

All else is vile secrets to her.

She will not let me,

Have my anonymity.

The only space I can only be is here now.

She will strangle me,

And I will let her.

Day Fourteen

You can look out,

At that never-changes view,

At that world,

You can no longer,

Barely be a part of.

But you won’t be any closer.

It’s a tease like that.

But its better,

Than the repeating pattern,

On the drawn blind, at least.

It moves, barely,

And time passes, barely,

And you can cling,

With your chewed fingernails,

To the illusion of progress, barely.

The glass protects you,

From everything but,

Your own mind.

Day Duvet

I am trapped,

In this pastel, checked cage,

Of soft, impenetrable fabric.

I am only efficiency now.

Only good time management,

For an unclear goal.

Not great, soaring,

Experience and simple, well-rehearsed pleasures,

And imaginings

And trying-outs of possibilities to taste,

Not to wonder and gorp at.

I know not what I am not.

Although I remain,

Where I would be otherwise,

Now my slow stagnation,

Is taken from me,

And imagination is halted on the production line.

What have I to complain of?

And yet,

Here I am.

Day Fifty-Three

In this hardwood cage,

I have a thousand hours,

To caress,

And inspect,

The forest,

Growing,

On my legs,

And between my thighs,

And around my eyes,

But never on my head.

I have the time,

To sing to my tea,

And commit,

To the sweet, sugary treats I yield to,

And to lay myself before my words,

And weep.

I have the time to see,

The green,

The gold,

The beige,

The papery steel,

And keep,

It close to me,

For now,

I have the time.

The time to scribble,

And the time to sleep.

Day Panic

It bombards us so constantly,

Without ever even entering our bodies for certain.

It lives and breeds in our ears,

And in our eyes instead.

It is now the state-mandated thought,

The only notion we are permitted to think,

To speak,

To scream.

So much so I cannot name it.

We are reminded,

Of the spectre,

Of our holiday of solitude,

First, in those early hours,

Between peaceful sleep and wakefulness,

And our days are punctuated,

With so-called news ,

In case we step,

A toe out of line,

And think on something else for a fleeting moment.

Day Sleep

I sleep,

I sleep,

I sleep,

I sleep,

And I pretend,

To sleep.

I watch the clock,

And I turn and close my eyes,

In mock sleep once more to see if it will take this time.

For there is nothing to do,

And nothing to eat,

But to sleep,

And sleep,

And sleep,

And read,

And listen,

And pretend,

And sleep,

And sometimes write.

I think when I scream to myself,

That I must,

Get Out!

Get Out!

Get Out!

When I know I cannot,

It is not so much a want,

But a reminder,

Of what I must do,

When I am able.

A reminder not to be sucked in,

To what I will surely regret.

We must learn to hate,

A little,

What we cannot sustainably have.

Day Ten

Sometimes I have to open,

The window and project my cheeks out into the world.

So I can feel,

The air on my face again.

So I can feel,

Anything that isn’t my own hands.

Even though,

All I can hear,

Are the mechanical birds and the swaying road.

Even though the blossom tree,

I liked so much,

That everyone seemed to deem so unimportant and fleeting,

Is finally, slowly losing its flowers.

Even though it is only a taste,

Of that sweet thing I cannot have.