Two poems I wrote in 2020
On pandemics & eugenics under capitalism
In 2020 I started writing poems about COVID to help me cope. I think I stopped around 2022, when I wrote about the people cheering about no longer having to mask on airlines while disabled, immunocompromised, and chronically ill people continued to feel left behind & even more excluded from public spaces. I stopped because writing poetry about it started to just make me feel worse.
I really like two of these poems & feel they convey my experience well as a chronically ill person grappling with COVID eugenics, but I doubt many places would publish them since the world is desperately trying to forget a virus that is very much still with us. So, here they are.
1.
Dream after dream
I am at a bar again
I am with my friends again
The virus doesn't exist
Or it has been eradicated
By collective action
In real life my state is open
Even though the virus
Is not gone
To think I fear something invisible but then again
Most of what I fear is invisible
Don't worry, it's almost gone, it's getting better they say
While the numbers grow past what we ever expected and this is what a pandemic does in a country that doesn't care enough,
Turns people into numbers
Dead people now just statistics used to decide if we should all go back to work or not
Make money to save an economy in a country that doesn't give a damn about us unless we already have money
They don't care if their decisions bring more workers, more sick people
To their graves
2.
United States geography is different
in my dreams,
I am closer to everything I wish I wasn't far away from in reality
Do you ever remember things being this bad?
I thought I knew what bad was before
It didn't feel as hopeless as this
The worst thing is we don't know when it will end
So I take classes online because the world doesn’t pause
Even for a global pandemic
My doctor says I need another MRI at some point
I think if I had an MRI right now, at this moment
It would reveal
Lesions inside my head where the fear lives
Where my anxiety breathes
Another universe inside me
But I've never felt so small