not too close, I say
when living becomes endangered
by the moment you open your gate
and risk your feet for a walk,
and the mask becomes your body part
you risk not to have
and your hands becomes fond of sanitizers
every second of touching,
what a world we’ve found beyond our imagination!
the queues are marked like parkings
at the malls, the bottle stores are dead
bodies, mourned by alcoholics
in the stomach of the day, to bedtime
the schools are haunted buildings
where books ghost their pages flipped
by learners whose dreams are now faint
hearts driven by winds of despair
and the homes now are free pesticides space
where one would wonder how cockroaches
would survive while kitchen racks emptied
for days and no hope of their belongings returning
and the song still sings outside,
every now and then is a stats rise
the virus keeps manifesting into people
no hope of leaving our beautiful land
no hope of returning our normal lives,
not too close, I say!