I’m scared.
No, not because there’s a pandemic going on,
even though that itself is enough
to make one lose their mind.
There’s another deadly virus crawling
its way into my whole being.
Slowly eating away at my sanity,
feasting on my thoughts,
mutating inside my head as if a colony of ants was given
an open invitation to a room full of sugary syrup.
I’m disintegrating.
Funny how the same thoughts,
who once used to tell me there’s an ocean of possibilities out there;
are slowly drowning me into the same pool,
replacing me, devouring me
bit-by-bit
as if my feet are tied with stones of expectations
and I keep swimming to the bottom, mistaking it for the shore.
Splash. Splash. Splash.
I see people making art, saving lives, reading books, writing novels,
cooking food, running home marathons -
resolving to turn this gloom into resilient happiness.
And I can’t help but feel disgusted
at my curled up crying self in the bedroom corner,
struggling to tell apart midnight from noon.
When I go to the kitchen to make my first
(and only) meal of the day,
the knife shivers, even though my hands are steady
it fears for the fingers that are too close to the blunt edge,
fearing that as the layers of onions come apart,
the body holding the knife
will shed its pretentious layers as well,
baring naked the vast void in the center.
How many layers will I have to cut
before I find myself again?
I’m scared to find out.
But there’s hope.
A distant glimmer at the horizon, but it’s there.
Counting my breath, one step at a time,
dragging myself through the dark tunnel,
following the whisper that says
it gets better.
it always does.
it has to.
A poem penned down during the Coronavirus pandemic. I see people who are struggling with mental health issues which, I can only imagine, would have exacerbated during these times. Take care of yourself, folks. Don’t forget that you matter. A lot.