By Duke, Cardiff

Isolation Isosceles

Isolate to protect others.
Be considerate to the contagiousness,
Spontaneous, simultaneously, germ swapping,
Can be instantaneous, yet hand washing, can help stopping, the virus.

I understand if Coronavirus, attacks your plans,
Swells your glands,
Gives you hard time with respiration.
To prevent we must go under isolation.

Do what we can to fight this pandemic,
It’s serious man I get it,
A vaccine we need then spread it,
To cure to, clean to, to save lives we need more medics!

But what I don’t understand, is why there was not an urge before this,
No surge as drastic, to fight an invisible virus, which,
Takes more and more lives every year, as people lose the will to fight, morbid,
They feel that they have no other choice but to forfeit,
A mental pandemic, it’s just not talked about enough,
Not explored enough,
Not worldwide reassured or even coped with, or even cured enough,
It is endured too much.

When Coronavirus, finally gets stuck and gets beaten up,
There will still be us.
There will still be some in isolation.
Solitary confinement of their own minds.

Mine is like a triangle isosceles.
The obsessive, intrusive thoughts that bother me,
Are equal to the compulsive rituals that hold me hostage, see,
This is followed by short term relief or uncertainty,
Which certainly burdens me.

OCDs hypocrisy, is possibly, the laughing monstrosity that angers me,
An imposter he, never checks on me,
If I’m doing alright, I am his mockery,
Working on his time, non-stop, on his clock of ferocity.

When he finally leaves, I feel like an apostrophe,
A nobody, like I’ve missed something incomplete,
So, lonely, I feel I never win the freedom trophy.

He just comes back with more attacks.
I guess all mental health sufferers are at war,
All I’m trying to say is that,
If we can all react together and actually listen to the scare of Coronavirus,
When it’s all over, can we still pull together
And show that we do actually care for each other
And talk about our problems, you know,
Fight the silence.

The recording of this poem was made when Duke peformed it at What’s Going On In Your Head? in March 2020. The show took place on Zoom while the live shows were suspended because of Coronavirus.