Erin Blaney is an A level student at Bilborough College in Nottingham. She wrote this poem very recently. We think she captures, in such a spare and thought-provoking way, the strange uncertainties and contradictory feelings of the times that she is living through. Thank you Erin for sharing your work.
Piece on Pandemic
I didn’t change the world I didn’t do a thing. Didn’t write a diary that would immortalise my version of events, like my history teacher said.
But I did watch the news.
Every day at 5 with mum and dad and coffee and a Twirl bar and the vague sense that we are being lied to
I walked the dog.
On days I can look back on now and wonder how the sun could have been so bright and I so fearless.
It feels like a time away from time. A bubble left separate from everything else.
Makes my brain shiver to remember how much I loved and hated it. And why do I miss it now?
I threw a blanket over my head.
When I couldn’t stand the sight of Grandma crying at her party. So in my own way, I fixed it.
I was the first blanket she had ever hugged
She was the first person I had held in months. Erin Blaney
Young Poets' Stories 