amidst

dear ronka
I am here
listening deeply
moving slowly
preparing diligently
growing steadily
& learning, learning, learning
this house arrest feels very different
from the romanticized version of self-imposed isolation
I longed for just a few weeks ago
boris just announced that london is on lockdown
immediately!
I find myself increasingly on the inside of these passing days
that flu that I caught out of nowhere two weeks ago
I didn’t think twice about it
ginger, garlic, turmeric, rest, repeat
while yesterday my right tonsil began to ache
and I was enveloped instantly in the wretched arms
of panic!
reading, conceptualizing and dreaming feels weighted now
like my chest under water
and I keep telling myself that it’s all psychosomatic
there is nothing the matter
I don’t have a cough or a fever or breathing difficulties
this moment ronka, it demands differently of my watery self
every time I hear my housemate cough, my body freezes
I know you understand my situation
and can appreciate my withdrawal
and maybe are even similarly positioned
(or maybe not)
that being said
I would love to see you but I can’t
because london is on lockdown
last night
I dreamt of a black horse so big
I thought it was a bear
with a black crochet caparison
its rider,
an ancient womxn
focused on looking over the field
to the left of me
she surveyed the land
then spun on her horse
both galloped away to the right of me
and disappeared into the forest
the dream was so vivid
I was convinced it was real
I saw them disappear
as I stood in awe
I have been in my tiny forest cottage
for the past few days under house arrest
we are running out of food
but I can’t bring myself to go to the shops
I am paralyzed by fear
I’ve chosen to spring-clean instead
and cook lengthy meals
I tried to do grocery shopping online
the deliveries were booked up to six weeks from today
did I tell you that
out of nowhere I developed a flu
but it was only the flu
people are panic-shopping and there is not enough
in the stores for the elderly and most vulnerable
the news keeps telling us that
I don’t know for sure because I can’t bring myself to go outside
I remember when I went last week
there was no hand sanitizer, no tissue paper, and no anti-bacterial wipes
I feel the way I feel when I’m on the pin-edge of decision-making
except there is no decision to make
and all my engagements have been postponed or cancelled
just like that, I am reminded that death also sometimes comes just like that
people are dying ronka, in the hundreds and thousands
people are dying all over the world (and always have, and always will)
I wonder if we’ll make it through this
growing up in shorthood lane, grandspen avenue
the precarity was everyday salt (it never ever disappeared, lessened maybe, but not disappear)
my grandmothers both were close friends
till a lover came between them
incurring my father’s mother’s wrath upon me
my father never left sixteen
even though he was already twenty at my birth
my mother almost a year past fifteen
the garrison — home
joy — home
separateness — home
love — home
difference — home
economic scarcity — home
collective — home
physical violence — home
family — home
I am away from my family right now
away from my mom and the boys and my brother
an entire continent and oceans away
in shorthood lane, in jack’s hill, in maxfield avenue,
I began early to make space on the
inside where on the outside
lurked monsters of the touching kind
wounds that heal in crooked ways
but do heal
class-crossed tracks and I had a penchant for thought
‘she bright’
‘maybe not pretty but bright’
prestige and high school hand-in-hand
the best in jamaica they said
‘the best of what exactly’
the best of the wealthy (except I was not in that group)
I think about the wealthy right now
how are the wealthy being affected by this moment in ourstory
I think of the working people, the so-called ‘unskilled’ workers
(not so ‘unskilled’ now right)
do the working people always bear the brunt of disaster
I wonder who will carry the wealthy and capitalism on broad-backs
if all the poor people die
whose blood would be sucked dry by inequity
prestige and high school hand-in-hand
but my own hands were not held for fear of ‘ghetto contamination’
I left jamaica when I was fifteen
and lost and found and lost and found and lost and found myself
all the way here to london
twenty-seven years later
along the way
I chose to fall in and out of love
I chose to have children, now fifteen and eleven
they grow as I navigate new, sometimes hostile waters
here in these waters is where I choose to be
in the forest, deep in the forest
with the trees, with my thoughts
with my doubts and fears
watching them fall away from me
like the leaves of grandmother oak
feeling exposed without them
in the forest, deep in the forest
and now not knowing
I have never known what the future holds
somehow that reality is now a reality
funny thing about life, isn’t it ronka
waiting cuts small scars into my hope
I tell myself life is the choice I choose to continue to make
while these vulnerabilities
swim puddles around my feet
in which I soak
I don’t know the names of the trees
in the woods
just outside my window
but I do know
they are
my salvation
amidst
desolation