When we first heard about you
You could say, we did what most people did,
We judged a book by its cover
We brushed the thought of you off,
Brushed off the fact that you were coming, that you are real

You arrived on the African soil
Faster than the sales of hand sanitisers and toilet paper,
But not as fast as the death toll rose
You created the suffering, you created the loss
You created these rules, these restrictions
That we were not used to, still not used to
You put us on hold

You took a lot of things away,
You took innocent lives
You took away the intimacy that bonded our souls together
You deprived us of the physical contact that we need,
You incapacitated our movement
You took away a simple hug, a simple high-five,
A simple but an effective touch
You put us on hold

As the number of cases rose
Panic rose even higher
Our states of mind changed, while looking at the same walls over and over
You left us alone with our thoughts
You restricted us, as much as fear did
You put us on hold