Covid-19 lockdown

I sit at home on my phone

work out my 5km zone

Then check the restrictions for my state

which the daily press conference complicates

The multi-state lockdowns are confusing me

The rules are different for all three

The case numbers soar, then dip, then soar

Narrow eyed, I pace my grotty floor

Volume on high, ipad clutched in one hand

the CHO’s insights I too well understand

as a creeping dread stirs my mind up

A foreboding which just won’t let up

“The restrictions are stricter.  Delta is different.  We must do better than ever before”

So, without three layers of cloth on my face, I’d now be breaking the state law

because “Alpha is bad, Delta is worse”

Death spelt in Greek in an invisible aerosoled burst

Like an assault from behind, “it only takes seconds”, we are told

(The thought stabbing my sanity threshold)

The garbage bin beside the sink

and floor tossed clothes start to stink

My thoughts tangled, weave a madhouse

each little fear a biting louse

My locked down mind erases birds from the sky

music a thorn scratching skin sanitised dry

Confined, my brain becomes a trap

flashing far too often back

I crave a hug, soft human skin

A selfish thought that again reeks of sin

Then, flipping, cringe from unwanted, dangerous hands

Memories that Covid’s reaching, creeping fingers have fanned

Inside, outside, nowhere is safe – just like before

Fear an inescapable revolving door

Nowhere to hide from these hunters, inevitable that I am found

I am paralysed, cornered, run to ground

Weariness heavy, I stare blankly in a daze

My stalking future cloaked in haze

Adrenaline pulsing, fear coiled like a spring

Father Delta an unimaginably threatening thing

Present and past dangerously tangled and curled

I’m overwhelmed in this nightmarish mutating world

Delta more dangerous than him, because its invisible

so even more unpredictable

My fear-white lips masked as I take the bin outside

Guilty, heart pounding, I scuttle out, then in, glassy eyed

Don’t get sick, don’t harm anyone

I should not breathe, nor should I be breathed on

Don’t speak, I scream, my tongue silent deep inside

(Even my own breath murdering my mind)

A twenty second itch in my throat, tickle in my nose

Chronic illness?  The dust?  Delta?  I assess the risk ratios

“Get tested”, we’re told, “for even the slightest sniffle

even if you think it’s superficial

A stick up 40 000 runny noses a day and this outbreak may end

Join the testing queue or risk killing yourself or your friend”

The people I love I imagine disabled or death masked

Most never answer their phone, so cannot ask

Grieving, aching, I ruminate obsessively

I don’t want them to end up traumatised like me

Friends ridicule, say I’m fearful, not brave

Overlooking the overwhelming number of futures my soap-chapped hands are trying to save

“Stay still!  Don’t move around”, we’re told, “to prevent the spread of this beast

Keep others at bay, stay inside, and this outbreak will cease”

Stuck on the four essential reasons to go out at all

Should I check the mail?  Walk round the block?  Terrified, I do bugger all

“Get vaccinated.  Have the jab, and on Sunday, we’ll see where we’re at”

Slightly comforted, at least I’ve already done that

Then “Don’t go out”, we’re told, “BUT don’t shop online”

Running low on food, I’m far away from fine

My brain bleached stupid, my hands won’t work

The nausea is worse, my nervous tick now a jerk

And when I’ve done an online order (finally)

two days wait to find someone has panic-bought yoghurt and zucchini

Scanning the ABC reports, as the days blur together

Covid’s cycle seems to drag on forever

Post-lockdown and restrictions stretch past the weekend

as we wait for the latest 28-day infection period to end

And when it does, stained by my past, ‘freedom’ isn’t free for me

Still hunted, I’m scared to go out, a trauma-formed life refugee

Yet, I do go out when each lockdown is over

and, I’d like to point out, moreover

through smashing fear, I did take that bin out, helped others where I could, and ordered online

Why?  I’m surviving this pandemic because I have a mooring line

A connection to someone who, steadfast, stays

steadying me through these most awful of days

An anchor. 

Imagine how impossible my life would be if I did not have that.