Smells exactly like dystopia.

 

Like singular beams of sunshine, washing emptied train carriages through and through.

 

And it looks rather like euphoria,

Like sunflowers left in the sink, bathing in undisturbed beauty, as yellow petals tend to do.

 

Feels like a string of subtle reminders that we are only human,

Like an accidental bite into a chilli pepper, a sneeze, a magnificent little blush too.

 

Then it smells like dystopia all over again,

Like our bloodstreams bleeding out their mistakes, ink falling in water –

Slow contamination through and through.

 

Tastes like the first glance one may get of oneself in an emptying humid room,

Like doing away with all hot air, and leaving behind solely what is true.

 

Sounds, yet again, like people being alone, self-isolated, in enchanted castle-top rooms,

Like crisis, and panic-buying; like headstrong and selfish humans who haven’t got even the slightest of clues.

 

And in all this wit and madness, it certainly feels like real happy poetic inspirations are few;

Like we’re all constantly falling, gliding, sort of doing what only humans can properly, meaningfully, do.

 

But you will read this poem, in ten years’ time, perhaps; we will have survived it, through every single starry night, through the yellows; through the blues.

And yes, sunflower person: out of order and within chaos, this poem was written specifically for you.