Does anyone remember the 80s and AIDs?
How we didn’t know what was going on and
we washed our hands after greeting someone
just in case they were
you know …
that type, one of “them”?
It’s now back in fashion.
This fear.
This primitive, so human
fear,
fed by our imaginations
and our deep need to
exclude, shame, frame
the “other”.
Who has Covid now?
Who squeezed this pack of Charmin
and didn’t wipe it down after?
Who got the jab, who didn’t?
Who is on the right side of history?
Who is the one infecting MY world?
Yahweh still speaks to us.
Hide your children, your firstborn!
Look above!
The sky is black with locusts, flies and frogs.
The rumors persist;
Who now is poisoning our wells?
The lepers are marching on the town.
Our neighbors are kissing Lucifer’s white buns.
Yes. Fear, death, retribution
— They plague us,
But the rats know the truth.
We aren’t suffering from COVID 19.
We are suffering from anxiety
and not being alive.
Our lives are dressed in
that same fear
that made us stupidly
wipe down each toilet seat
we once sat on.