A POEM | JESSE RYON

Once upon a time, I had a dream... and it glimmered in my lobe with a profoundly seemly gleam.

It was of the before time - in the long-long-long ago. When I licked upon your sweaty, smelly faces at punk shows.

When we formed a frenzied commune round a shared Whyte Ave donair, and dined upon our Hygaard subs - after removing clumps of hair.

We had snuggle puddles, beer bongs, and we shared amenities! We threw our toilet paper in the trees of enemies!

We bit our nails, we shared our ales - wiped boogers in our cars! Our bodies even intertwined inside the pits of GWAR!

We spent time on sports like soccer, tonsil hockey, table tennis- I once spat rainbow cookies... into the mouth of Dennis. Ick!

Nothing seemed to matter- one time I even licked a mouse! And, on more than one occasion, I let Joachim inside my house.

We had school classes while we scratched our asses; we nary had a care. There was no reason not to; for no pathogen was there.

But then the dream fell sour - like a lemon parachute.. The smells and colours dripped away - the hue turned destitute.

Everything was easy, but then things became so hard. Everywhere were enemies - door knobs, bars, and bank cards.

A culture birthed from fear and loathing- of a world with viral coating. We were marooned inside our homes - with our cruise ships only floating..

We lost our jobs, we cancelled concerts - all our social outings. No whispers to our neighbours, it was safer to be shouting.

But we stood together... by standing far apart. We helped each other when we could - we never lost our hearts.

We never hoarded, bogarted, we all tried to be better. And after such a long time... WE'LL GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER!