covid 19

COVID 19
They say the world does not stop for anyone;
time does not stand still for anyone. 

Today, the busy shopping malls, offices and restaurants
and city centres all empty, still and quiet. 
A deafening sort of quiet,
a silence that screams, echoing through each hollow city, 
bouncing off vacant skyscrapers and isolated corridors. 

The only place crowded with people, is where most people are dying;
sick patients lay in hospitals, breathing slow and faint,
whispering their last words to an empty ward,
words that remain unheard, hanging in the tense atmosphere. 
And as they breathe their last breath, they lose their identity to a statistic.
Distant. Far from their loved ones who wait at home, 
restless and broken and tired. 

Whilst the rest of the world thrives:
the sun glitters on the surface of the oceans that you had polluted, 
there is no thick, opaque smog blocking the wash of blue above us
and famous canals have become cleaner than ever.
You finally begin to appreciate what you had,

what has been snatched from you,
to deliver justice to the suffering of the world. 

The world as you knew it has paused.
Time seems to be flying too quickly, 
Or crawling away too slowly, and either way, 
your time is being fed away carelessly, 
as you hide behind a screen all day and night, losing sleep.  

You are restricted to the walls of your house, confined,
almost like a grave, inescapable, suffocating and gasping for mercy. 
Ignorance and pride has run out, and you hold a burden of heavy regrets. 
The blessings you never counted, slowly turn sour. 

A virus, so small it isn’t visible to the naked eye, 
Is that all it ever took to humble you? 

Irha Fatima 
Year 11