I Wanted To Die #Stories4Health

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I Wanted To Die

When I first heard the news 

Of a deadly disease in Wuhan in December;

Killing people left, right and centre;

I Wanted To Die.

Anxiety had me daily checking the stats,

Sanitising my hands till my fingerprints wore off,

Following closely to see who else at the front line had kicked the bucket.

I Wanted To Die.

When the virus killed the first Africans,

“Aah, those were groomed in foreign countries,”

I thought to myself.

I Wanted To Die.

When the killer disease reared its ugly head on African soil,

Night sweats and palpitations wouldn’t let me sleep.

I Wanted To Die.

The pandemic rolled in from the South and the West,

Until Uganda was a landlocked island

In a sea of corona.

I Wanted To Die.

When we registered our first case,

My old friend anxiety left me,

For there was nothing more to fear, but fear itself.

I Wanted To Die.

With no deaths in sight,

A friend joked that we had imported the ‘kikyupuli’ version

As we are wont to do.

I Wanted To Die.

Anxiety returned with the extra working hours and the curfew,

With the long wait for every suspected corona case to turn out negative,

The long shifts and strict rules got the better of me.

I Wanted To Die.

Eventually my mind and body gave in

To the terror of staying alive in the times of corona.

To the strangulated breaths in the N95 masks.

I Wanted To Die.

I lost my love.

I lost my livelihood.

I lost myself.

I Wanted To Die.

But Alas! Here I stand!

No love; No livelihood; No life;

Like COVID 19 I’m still here

And I don’t want to die…

Written by

Kirabo Turinawe

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