It’s Poetry Wednesday - Grief
A maudlin little poem, cos, hey the world is shite today.
I’m sat here watching the heartbreaking Breathtaking about the doctors and nurses on the front line at the beginning of the Corona virus pandemic. It’s bringing it all back and it’s scary. It’s scary especially as I’m one of the vulnerable ones. I’ve had COVID 3 times now, the first time was after 2 years, we’d been so careful for that long, and then R and I caught it at a family funeral, then again as people began to ease precautions last September, both of these were bad for me; and the last time in December was mild but three months later I’m still suffering with breathlessness and a cough. I still haven’t regained my sense of smell I lost from the first one, coffe smells and tastes like old cigarette stubs. They say the more times you have it the more chance you have of extra problems afterwards.
So I was going to post a silly flippant poem I wrote on a whim but it seems wrong. So for all of those who have lost their lives, or lost a loved one, or lost a life but are still living (I’m looking at my ME/CFS Long COVID peeps), this a more morose poem.
Grief
The tears want to fall
But I keep them walled up in my chest
Bubbling away
Coffee coloured agitation
Stirring emotions I’ve forced away.
They churn relentlessly, pushing upward.
It’s a heavy stone they struggle against,
The grief of this life lost
For grief it is
The unshed deep well of years.
I feel them rise
Hover on my lashes,
Occasionally one escapes and trickles down my check
Dragging huge, wracking sobs with it,
Sobs hauled from the bottom of my diaphragm
Sobs crashing through my chest
Sobs bruising along my heart
Sobs scouring my throat
Sobs I push down along with the tears,
Blinking them back.
If I let them fall
There will be such a deluge
I will dissolve
Washed away atom by atom,
Cell by cell,
Obliterated completely by ancient wet melancholy.
Feb 2024I hate this government with a vehemence. And Chanel 4 are doing a great job trying to hold them to account at the moment. Mr Bates, Breathless and the news coverage yesterday about ME/CFS. I hope they continue.
Anyway, on that maudlin note, I leave you. Happy poetry Wednesday.
As usual comment, share, subscribe etc. cheer me up.
Wow, this is so beautiful. Thank you. My wife's had COVID three times as well (I haven't gotten it yet) and she's got extra problems as a result. Thank you for writing something like this.
Very moving xxx I hope lightness comes your way in an unexpected way tomorrow xx