seclusion

poem I wrote to capsulate how I felt when covid first shattered our world in early 2020

Fatal Sloth

Encompassed in thought

Engulfed in the flashing luminosity

Hormonal blues, or the fatal sloth

Hours and hours spent enclosed

Yearning for felicity

The settled regime of everyday

The habits I was accustomed to

All came to a chilling halt

Time seemed to temporarily stand still

A place so condoling

Now dark, now tight

Now suffocating

I was detained and so lonesome

The lust for people’s gaze

My unavailing dreams of normalcy

Searching for an authentic smile

The wrinkles in the corners of my eyes

Hid the frown beneath

My efforts seemed to be in vain

For the thoughts continued to race

Years were spent running, sprinting away

Dodging the patronizing words my brain had decided to spurt and spit on me

All the work I did, fixations on my studies, all a wall

Blocking the thoughts attempting to crawl over

Until the chilling halt shattered the wall with its piercing frost

And all chaos broke loose

For forever it seemed

I rocked back and forth in dark

Change isn’t yearned for

It’s inevitable

But I wasn’t ready

But I was doing fine

But it’s not fair

I scrambled to get a hold of my dignity

A net chasing a butterfly

Begging for it all to come back to me

My legs shake, and give out

Tears stream down my face

The mask covers my laughter