Creative writing | May 2020

I am absolutely amazed that I've managed to publish a monthly piece of creative writing on here consistently since March. But hey! I'm enjoying finding time to write again, though I'd probably give up my entire ability to write poetry if it meant I could see my friends and go to the pub and get my eyebrows done and hug my nephew. Alas, not yet. So for now here's my third piece of 'pandemic poetry'. I would love to know what you think, as always.

Lemon Juice Dreams: Pandemic Poetry #3

On the 1st day we kept a stiff upper lip and drew

our breaths and made lists of all the

things and people we would miss,

and on the 6th day we drank wine at 10am,

cried to 90s pop songs and argued about

whether chocolate chips belong in banana bread,

and on the 14th day we kissed our parents

via phone screens and watched re-runs of Red

Dwarf and counted down until it was bed time.

On the 18th day we jogged down empty 

roads under thick black clouds not caring if

it rained, shoes carving blisters into our ankles,

and on the 22nd day we tried and failed to

remember the shape of our best friends’ faces

as they laughed at our failed jokes but

we couldn’t quite picture the contours correctly.

On the 27th day we squeezed bitter fruit and

barely noticed as the acid seeped into the

broken skin around our finger nails. On the 32nd

day we saw the sunshine again and drank

margaritas in back gardens and went to

sleep with red noses, and on the 39th day we 

ached for normality: midday football games

and the choking smell of vinegar in the chip shop.

On the 43rd day we wondered just how many

days would be left: would we still see each other

in dreams, or just the shapes of all we left behind?