mask

      the mask slips
   (as I breathe out)
      the world slides
   (as I breathe in)

            in the game
            blindfolded
         (counting in whispers)
               it seeks
                  I hide
            (five-ten-fifteen-twenty)
               it changes
               again

      I find
      no comfort in its folds
      this mask I wear
   (for breathing)
      against gravity
      and infection
         no protection
         only a disguise
      for an uncontrolled rain
      of droplets
   (breathed)
      like hope
      or fresh air
   (choked back)
      like doubt
      or dust

            (inhalation)   
               is no longer child’s play
            (as I stretch across)
                  untouchable
                  surfaces
               before exhalation
            (frictionless)
               empties me

      the mask
   (its rise and fall)
      covers up
      whatever emotion
   (hand on heart)
      fear becomes

            (I smother in this cloth)
               my hope discarded
            (a useless talisman)
               playground litter

© BH, 2021

It's a strange thing when you get inspiration foisted on you. But it happens a lot in the FB universe. I think people are looking to find echoes through the medium; people who write (poems, good and not so good) and who want to hear something back. We all need it, actually. It's why I got back into performing in 2018 and 2019 - the buzz you get from people listening and, largely, liking what you've written. Validation, vindication.

Now that's been held back for damn near a year now and the stuff comes thick and fast. This, in particular, if I recall (and, to be honest, my memory if Facebook-fuzzy these days) was about yet another Covid response. Might even have been the word 'mask' itself.

What's not to like about that? Lots of resonances about how we hide and not from disease. Isolation. Being in the world. separation. What-have-you.

In the end, it's always 'what-have-you' that's most interesting…