Being sick is inherently lonely, but being sick with COVID feels like being cast adrift on a very small, very sweaty island. You’re hyper-aware of your own body—the scratch in your throat, the way your skin hurts when the sheets move, the strange metallic taste that makes everything from water to toast taste like a penny.
Here is the psychological torture of a 2020s-era sickness: We forgot how to be still. i wrote this at 4am sick with covid
: Many writers describe a literal "breathlessness" in their verse that mirrors the physical symptoms of the virus. Being sick is inherently lonely, but being sick
The Biology of the Midnight Muse: Fever and Sleep Deprivation : Many writers describe a literal "breathlessness" in
At 4 AM, sick with COVID, I am not resting. I am doom-scrolling. I am looking at Instagram stories of people at concerts, drinking clear liquids that aren't Pedialyte, breathing through both nostrils. I feel a pang of jealousy. Then I feel a pang of shame for feeling jealous. Then I cough so hard I almost throw up.