I'm Oddly Calm Through All Of This - Poem
The virus is taking over.
People are dying.
Hospitals are overflown.
This is it.
This is the end.
This is what Revelation was talking about.
This is how civilization dies.
But I don’t feel so bad.
Should I start singing that R.E.M. song now?
Am I okay?
Is something wrong with me?
Maybe I’ll go ask Machine Gun Kelly. He may help me out.
Perhaps I’m not panicking because I know that no matter what happens, I’ll be okay.
My life’s status is not reflected by my health.
I know who I am.
I am not a man who has a title that warrants any attention from anyone.
I am no politician with a speech ready for this sort of stuff.
“We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight by the garbage dumpsters that workers use to hide from their bosses but are eventually found out. We shall fight everywhere. Even by this podium. I am ready to throw this microphone if I have to.”
“Today Germany. Tomorrow we lose the war, and more importantly, this great style for facial hair.”
“We don’t go to the moon cause it’s easy. But because if the Soviets get there first we are all screwed. Aside from Marilyn, who will most certainly get screwed no matter what the Soviets do.”
I am no businessman ready to tell you how you can make money from all of this.
“See the trick is understanding what is not being used, but will be used when this crisis is over.”
Sure.
I am no pastor or preacher.
For those with ears, let them hear, and let’s hope to God they have good headphones.
The first shall be last. What about those in the middle who are neither first or last? What happens to them? They get free coupons to IHOP, obviously.
I am only me.
The guy who businesses fire because the job I do can be done by many.
I am the guy who gets no awards at the award ceremony.
When I tell people to read my work, they do so out of a favor to me, and then they read this and are not impressed.
I am a nobody and this notion brings me more peace than any election or grant ever could.
This virus could kill me.
One day, a symptom becomes a cold, a cold becomes the virus, the virus brings my death.
And just like that, I am gone from this life, all from a virus.
Or I could live til I’m 95.
And I’ll be telling the young kids of how I lived through the virus that almost ended the world.
“What did you do during the crisis, Grandpa?”
“Uh... I wrote a blog?”
“A what?”
By then I assume blogs will be out of date.
My approach towards life is why I’m so content.
I live by a simple philosophy: to try to make the world a little better every day I’m here.
If while I am here, I am helping this place out, I think I’ve done well.
Sometimes I win, and I make vast changes.
Sometimes I lose, and I fall behind.
But I never allow badness to just roll over me and win.
I don’t fold the cards and leave the table.
I always continue to play.
A day of failure is tomorrow’s lesson.
What will I do as this virus spreads?
As I walk around seeing more and more facemasks, hear of the uncertainty of our leaders, and feel the fear of people rising like a wave.
I’ll do the same thing I’d do if this virus wasn’t spreading.
Try to help people.
I say try because you don’t always help them, even if at the time you think you are.
I may change how that help looks.
But my heart, the very thing that makes me, more than any title or award, will always be in the right place.
That’s why I’m okay through all of this.
Once this virus passes the world will still need help.
The world will always need help.
It did then. It does now. It will in the future.
It’s always a matter of accepting that obstacle and then doing what I can to overcome it.
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About The Blogger
Greg Luti is an editor and blogger on pensandwords.com. His favorite writers are Robert Frost and Charles Bukowski. He enjoys reading up on history, watching comedies, and playing video games, when he is not writing down a few notes for his next piece. He started this blog out of his love for literature and hopes that the reader shares that same passion.
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