Take away my feelings,
You take the
press, **** and poke,
the nudge, palm and *****;
my caress, hug and tap,
my hold, tag and grip.
where's embrace, wrap and push,
entwine, rub and clutch;
                 and more.
take a glance, paw and grasp,
a nuzzle, scratch or clasp;
an itch, clench and handle,
my entangle and ******
all gone... all lost.

They have taken away my touch,
Making it hard to say Good-bye.

The Pandemic in Six-Word Memoirs
“The world has never felt smaller.”

By Larry Smith
Mr. Smith is the creator of Six Word Memoirs.

Since 2006, I’ve been challenging people to describe their lives in six words, a form I call the six-word memoir — a personal twist on the legendary six-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I’ve found that some of the most memorable six-word stories arise in the extremes — during our toughest and most joyous moments. So over the past several months, I’ve asked adults and children around the country to use the form to make sense of this moment in history: one person, one story, and six words at a time.

Not a criminal, but running masked.
— Stella Kleinman

Every day’s a bad hair day.
— Leigh Giza

Home ec: rationing butter, bourbon, sanity.
— Christine Triano

Cinemagraph
Can’t smell the campfire on Zoom.
— Melanie Abrams

Deserted crowded Manhattan, my own island …
— Elisa Shevitz

Eighth hour of YouTube. Send Help!
— Leela Chandra

Cinemagraph
Messy hair, messy room, messy thoughts.
— Lily Herman

I regret saying, “I hate school.”
— Riana Heffron

Read every book in the house.
— Francesca Gomez-Novy

Cinemagraph
Never-ending, but boredom doesn’t faze me.
— Lily Gold

Required school supplies: screens, screens, screens.
— Darshana Chandra

Won scrabble; smile breaks through mask.
— Abby Ellin

Cinemagraph
Tuning out parents, under my headphones.
— Lukas Smith

This is what time looks like.
— Sylvia Sichel


Bad time for an open marriage.
— Rachel Lehmann-Haupt

Cinemagraph
Sun-kissed lips? Not kissed this year.
— Twanna Hines

Avoiding death, but certainly not living.
— Sydney Reimann

Social distancing myself from the fridge.
— Maria Leopoldo

Cinemagraph
Dream of: heat, limbs, crowds, concerts.
— Amy Turn Sharp

Teacher finding inspiration through uneasy times.
— April Goodman

Slowly turning into a technological potato.
— Jad Ammar

Cleaned Lysol container with Lysol wipe.
— Alex Wasser

Cinemagraph
Hallway hike, bathtub swim, Pandora concert.
— Susan Evind

Numbers rise, but sun does too.
— Paloma Lenz

Afraid of: snakes, heights, opening schools.
— Michelle Wolff

The world has never felt smaller.
— Maggie Smith

Cinemagraph
How do you make sense of this moment in history?

Share your own six-word memoir in the comments. We’ll feature some of our favorites in a future article.

There are those fighting for their life
There are those fighting for their/ to be right(s)
There are those fighting to be white

and now the numbers
are rising again
hospitals filling
ICUs getting sparse

it seems this virus actually is
a bit more dangerous than the common flu
no matter what irresponsible leaders
across the globe keep telling their citizens

against the advice of medical experts
despite almost
30 million infected
1 million dead
and hundreds of millions of jobless

encouraging their followers
to ignore safety instructions
making them believe it is OK again
to spread infections on parties and in discos
or massive election campaign events
continuing the vicious circle
… continuing …. continuing …. continuing...

It was hard in those trenches.
Cut off from the rest of the world.
Cold and wet
And muddy.

Left without the right equipment:
Brush handles for rifles.
The government sending the right signals
But sadly failing to produce.
We soldiered on,
Following the rules of engagement
Laid down by the top brass.
Keep your head down lad!

We dug in for weeks.
Not knowing what day it was.
No sense of time.
Our old routines long gone.
Nowhere to go
And nothing to do
But hide.

But then we emerged.
Looking forward to victory.
Marching heads aloft
Across the battlefield.
Confident that soon our boffins will come up
With some A Bomb to
Finish them off.

But wait.
The enemy isn’t finished.
Indeed it’s resurgent.
Gathering it’s troops
For a deadly
Counter-attack.

We may be war weary.
Fed up of the carnage
And having to hide
Like rats.

But, “Back to the trenches boys (and girls!)!”
Is the cry
From above.
Our commanders are in a panic.
They steer us to the nearest bolt hole
As Meerkats escaping a bird of prey.
For we may be weary
Of all this
But our enemy is deadly.
Our enemy?
You guessed it:
Covid 19.

Paul Butters

© PB 13\9\2020.

History stands still, but time seems to be flying
Our world is selling a product and I'm not buying

Panic, hate and fear knocking to serve at my door
Watching others with plates out asking for more

People hungry for sorrow and thirsty for pain
Kindness, light and sensibilities lay quietly slain

The earth is on fire in every sense of the word
No answers or hope just the utterly absurd

once you were gone i stopped writing
and hand in hand with the words unpoken
left the wholeness you had planted in my heart
when you turned around i could see snowflakes imprinted on your back
staring daringly at the little tree growing in my chest
i tried to protect and nurture the words in my brain
that after all were just the leaves of what had once been a seed in the form of a single look
the cold that filled your absence
froze the river that had watered my mind
and each leaf one by one turned yellow then brown before it sank to the bottom of it all
left naked and vulnerable, the tree, it died as the did the words
while i watched the sun and warmth that you embodied get into a car
and drive away without looking back