#quarantine poems on Hello Poetry

John Glenn May 2020

ECQ

Being young but unable to go out
Being able to go out but not feel young
The sky is nothing but a wide stare
into dry nothingness.
The drinks are a distant memory.
The moon smiles on the empty cities.
There's nobody to smile back.
The Monday mornings are not hated.
The Friday nights aren't to be thanked
in as much as opening
a canned sardine
with the edge of a dull knife.

Going to bed is not a rare occasion.
Staying in it is ubiquitous.
There's no race against a clock.
We're waiting to be freed
from our own homes.
As if the constant crowds
gave us joy in the first place.
Waiting...
to soar like a bird
and have the bliss
of a stained liver once again.

#quarantine #2020 #youth

monique ezeh May 2020

nineteen

age 7:
i remember being 6 and desperate to be 7— my sister had a book to gift me for the occasion, and i was positively vibrating with the anticipation of it becoming mine. 7’s always been my lucky number. the date of my birth, the days in the week, the start of my phone number. and so, 7 came and went, and suddenly i was 8.

age 8:
i moved to georgia. it didn’t hurt nearly as much as i’d expected, as much as i’d hoped. I’d wanted to feel pain in the real way, to wail and sob like a DCOM protagonist, to shut myself in my room until my mother stood the doorway to talk me down. pain makes feelings matter; who am i, if i’ve never suffered? but instead, i was fine. i said goodbye to my friends, packed my bags, and left. i haven’t spoken to any of them since.

age 10:
i finally hit the double digits. i was in fourth grade. coincidentally, it was also the first time in my life that a crush had liked me back. i felt like a real woman. i remember straightening my hair and wearing my favorite pink outfit to school, a matching shirt and skirt, box of cupcakes for the class clutched in hand. they sang happy birthday and i somehow forgot what sadness was.

age 11:
the first time i cried on a birthday.

ages 13-15:
more tears.

age 16:
sweet sixteen! this was it! i planned a party, heart thumping in my chest wondering if anyone would come. i didn’t cry on my birthday, but i cried the morning of the party. i wonder if that still counts. when the blurred vision of my tears cleared, i saw the puzzle pieces of my life falling into place. i remember thinking: “i’m finally who i’m meant to be.” (spoiler: i was wrong)

age 18:
an adult. i cried (again), but who doesn’t? i celebrated with my family, counting down the days between then and graduation. 18. one of my favorite one direction songs; it dawned on me that i only had a year left to fall in love so i could play it at my wedding. 18. it dawned on me that my youth was slipping away. in a year, i’d be celebrating my birthday in a city miles and miles away, distanced from my family for the first time in my life. (spoiler: i was wrong about that, too) 18. it feels so scary, getting old.

age 19:
today. i haven’t cried yet. i wonder if i will. i wonder a lot, these days. this day is not how i imagined it; this year is not either. i think i am okay with that, though. expectations, in my life, have often led to disappointment. 19 19 19. i missed my window with the 1D song, but i think i’m okay with that, too. 19 19 19. i repeat the word until it loses all meaning. 19 19 19. i begin to wonder if it ever had any. 19 19 19. life is an incomprehensible amalgamation of numbers words moments symbols ideas. 19 19 19. none of them mean anything. 19 19 19. or perhaps all of them mean everything? 19 19 19. today, i am 19. it means nothing. it means everything.
19 19 19.
i close my eyes and make a wish.

happy birthday to me.

#birthday #aging #covid #quarantine #growth #prosepoetry #prose #list #tears #crying

Parastoo Abbaszadeh May 2020

Not A Heavy Heart!

My heart is not heavy
When pain is left alone behind Crying
I live in here;
But my heart is so far away
It's too tired of living with
Harsh,
Being harassed
So decided to escape away
There are holes
In my heart
Digged with rumors & gossips
Revised over for lying
I fill'em with secrets
keeping safe with my resistence
Like it's never gonna have that kind of roots in my soul
Yet it's keen to move forward;
I told!

#quarantine #life

Em Glass May 2020

Day 47: all in

here we are, dangling
our feet over the edge
of the meantime,
here we are, sitting
on the edge, dangling
our feet over, letting
the cracked skin of our
fingertips skim the surface
of the meanwhile, waiting
for our reflections to break

all in Illinois

#quarantine #pandemic #waiting #stayathome #reflection

Ryan May 2020

Lockdown

Covid-19,
this all seems like some dystopian dream.
The PM’s on TV,
saying he’s shutting down the country.

It’s like watching Sci-Fi,
protective equipment is in short supply,
we need to keep our distance,
there’s even been resistance to this.

People flocked to Cheltenham,
over 250,000 of ‘em.
The crowd was big at the Stereophonics gig,
Have a Nice Day,
critics say they should have stayed away.

No gatherings in parks,
panic sparks mass buying,
people are crying because they can’t get their medication.

Stay home,
some people are alone which limits the spread to other people,
but it’s probably not good for their mental health,
despite their wealth,
celebrities are just like you and me.

“Imagine all the people,”
okay, maybe not,
easier to isolate in a 200-acre estate,
behind a giant steel gate.

Two-weeks in quarantine,
nervous wait between infection and symptoms,
not enough testing machines to screen for this unseen virus,
most pull through which inspires us.
others don’t,
they were real people who fell ill,
not a number on a spreadsheet.

There was some negativity,
but people have the capacity to come together,
free taxi rides for NHS staff,
putting in the graft,
but they didn’t sign up for the draft.
They’re health professionals working to the bone,
staying away from home adds to the stress.

People reassess what it means to be important,
Key-workers,
not high earners but they still went to work to serve us,
when all this is done,
Remember that in years to come.

If the majority of your office work is done via computer,
you don’t have to be a commuter.
Work from home, no need to travel into town,
Zoom remotely in your dressing gown,
Microsoft Teams,
sending each other memes via Slack,
keeping it all on track,
maybe this could be permanent once life goes back?

Taking an online course,
attacking a new hobby with great force,
exercise, art supplies,
devise fun games with chalk on concrete,
liven up the street.

Rainbow pictures,
reading your scriptures,
video chat with your Nan in her flat,
shopping for your neighbour,
donating to food banks,
giving thanks.

This will pass,
the new normal will be different,
but we’ll be content because we won’t take things for granted,
hopefully.
Emotionally it’s been rough,
turn that frown around once it’s safe to leave Lockdown.

A beginner who is looking for some constructive feedback.

#lockdown #quarantine #uk #health

lua May 2020

soon

the trees sway with the gentle afternoon breeze
as the hot day ticks by
the familiar whirr of a car zooms through an empty street
as joggers jog along the lonely pavement
stray cats hiss and scratch
a dog wanders alone
the busy life i once lived through
seems like a blurred dream
but this is a season finale
and a long, stretched out hiatus of some sort
and soon the next episode will start
soon.

life goes on.

#everydaylife #quarantine #lonely #seasonfinale #episode #soon

kristina May 2020

day 1

i hear the wind
sometimes raindrops too
i feel the heat of the sun
at night, i see the light of the moon

i can’t go out
for a better view
or a better feel

but i know
i am grateful
to still be breathing

trying to post one thought a day until this quarantine is over

it’s all gonna be okay

#quaranthoughts #life #quarantine #breathe

Tom Atkins May 2020

A Stranger's City

It has been a year since you visited the city.
walked its streets with its crowds of infinite variety,
an anonymous soul elbow to elbow with strangers,
Faces and fashion and more than that, an energy
so unlike your sanctuary in far away Vermont.

You need this, every so often. It feeds you,
a reminder of the power of mass and masses,
your mind awash with the vast mix of America
all gathered in one place, dreams, and nightmares
and side hustles, a place of promise and fear,
everyone going somewhere, doing, reaching,
faces animated. There is purpose here, urgency,

a reminder

of what you fled, and why you come back,
grateful for your place of peace, but aware
that too much peace and you fall into rot,
that yours is a life barely in balance, a needful life,
needful less of things than places, experiences,
the soul of places and people unlike yourself.
like salt in the stew, it flavors you, always in danger
of too much or too little.

Here is the Hassidic Jew in his worn black coat and hat.
Here is the Puerto Rican girl, bright and loud.
Here are the suits,
the old Italian woman pulling her cart of groceries,
the tourists, the hustlers and homeless,
the old Russian men playing chess in the park,
The Arabs gathered for their thick black coffee,
Here are the hayseeds and vagabonds like me,
passing through, thieves of energy that no one misses.
There is more than enough to go around.

Here are carts of food and Gucci knock offs.
Of diners just outside theatres. Hotels
for the rich and poor sit side by side.
Crowds outside Penn Station, steady streams
rise and fall in and out of subway stations.
Water towers and gardens on the roofs.
Carts of clothes on racks roll by you as you walk.
Here are all the things you are not,
somehow becoming you. You should be lost here
but you never are, It feels like home. Not a place of peace,
but a place of constant becoming.
You smile when you are there, even if you leave exhausted.

It is your pilgrimage, Once, twice a year,
But not this year.
TH=he city has grown dark and dangerous.
Time Square is still full of billboards and video screens
and hardly a soul to see them.
We are warned away in this plague year,
the power of the place gone inside, waiting out death,
and you mourn the lost,
and you wonder,
when you can return, and how, and what will be left
for strangers like me.

I love New York City, and watching what they have gone through and are still going through, has been heartbreaking,

#new #york #city #nyc #coronavirus #quarantine #loss

lua May 2020

sunsets during quarantine

ive looked out my window for the thousandth time this week
i count the blades of grass
aimlessly,
boredom seeping through the cracks
of my phone screen
and when i turn my head towards the peachy sky
all muddled with dark clouds
soaking in the blue of the coming night
as the sun sets
its orange hue, so bright
it makes me feel
like im in a trance
dazed, delirious
hypnotised.

#quarantine #sunset #sun #boredom