There used to be a gentleness,
To my clumsy but daily life,
The softness of a blanket,
The cotton clouds drifting by,
The scent of freshly cut flowers,
The look of a clean kitchen,
The clinging of wind chimes,
That I desperately missed.
The violence in my veins,
The glitches in my brain,
The storms in my heartbeat,
My bloodflow pierced with glass pieces,
The lightning aching in my joints,
The doubling down of gravity,
Never quite catching my breath,
That new burning, feverish reality.
My muscles like bags of stones,
The fossilization of my bones,
Waking up like an ancient vampire,
A dark tomb that used to be my bed,
One step forward and three steps back,
My whole being stuck in a frozen fire,
Swimming for my life from the deep end,
My body invisibly collapsed.
But one day back in the pharmacy,
The cheapskate one with lots of sale and zero beliefs,
After two years of long covid’s misery,
Dead on my feet but standing,
The old ladies with their grey curls,
Who used to be young in a different century,
Their withered skins and their lips so thin,
Fumbled with their plastic bags,
Whispered about the different colours,
And tasted the right sizes,
As they were treating themselves to sweets.