Omar

Age: 38
Occupation: Poet

True love distant
Not closeness anymore
Together alone
Globally lonely

And when the bell tolls
I shall think of you
And so, I’ll think of me

Every man an island.

As a poet, I’m used to being alone.

I actually need the silence. It whispers ideas into my ear. Very gently.

You can’t hear it amidst the noise.

I know that for a fact. I spent three years in prison.

No whispers there.

In my country, one can go to prison for loving the wrong person.

But he was the right person for me.

His name was Sami.

I don’t know what happened to him.

When I was arrested, he fled, I suppose. To another land, far, far away.

I hope he’s happy.

I hope he can be who he is.

The lockdown is not painful for me.

But I do feel for those who have never known a life of loneliness.

For they must suffer as I once suffered.