“I’m fine thank you”

By: 

Mary

Dickins

Throughout lockdown I tried to project an outwardly upbeat and optimistic persona. If anyone asked how I was the stock answer was always "Fine thank you." This poem considers what I might have said if I revealed how I was really feeling.

I’m muddled as a drawer full of mismatched socks

I worry about loss

Always attending imaginary funerals

I worry about extinction

Sullenly traipsing through misanthropic tropes

I worry about social media

Incensed by puerile, pernicious propaganda

I worry about fascism

Recklessness and spontaneity are now illegal

I worry about liberty

Yet I am determined to remain visible

I worry about surveillance

Yes my head is bursting with desperate scenarios

I worry about the children

When I make myself toast and Marmite

I worry about Marmite shortages

Armed with just my wits and unyielding

I worry I am irrational

I resist the Valium; rejig the sock drawer

I worry about disorder

I seize each day and try not to end it

I’m worried about tomorrow

Defeated and drenched in despair

I’m so worried about all this worrying

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Become a Member

Our Members are champions of literature. Their support makes our engagement work in schools and prisons possible and they enable us to celebrate literature in all its wonderful diversity. As a thank you, we give them all the joys of a literary festival and book club rolled into one, all year round.