Foggy Mental Skies

Ah, the joys of long COVID…I jest of course! One of the many symptoms is Brain Fog, which can happen to anyone when they’re over tired or under the weather. The experience is literally as if a cloud has descended inside your head and you have no idea where you were going with the conversation or even what the sentence was related to. And you do feel lost amid a wilderness of a vast vocabulary which you have no access to. Not only can you not see the wood for the trees, but you can’t even see the trees!

Writing is much better for me. It’s easier to deal with a moment of blankness, when you’re staring at a screen. Whilst it may still be frustrating to a degree, there is no embarrassment linked to the sudden self-conscious awareness of what feels like an intelligence black-out. It comes back and, as I have mentioned, I have found that writing poetry has helped me a lot in this respect. And I am hopeful that the symptoms will recede, like the fog, and I will enjoy the clear-headed wit and wisdom that I used to.

But for now, I hope you enjoy my little poem. Please remember that you can watch me recite all my health and wellbeing poems on my YouTube Channel, A Stitch In Rhyme.

Foggy Mental Skies

When I’m feeling tired and I know I’ve overdone it
I feel a blight pervade my mind and smother all my sharp wit
And conversation becomes like a crossword without clues
Where I can’t find the right word or even pick and choose.
I falter in full flow when my synapses drop the baton
And suddenly without a rhyme or reason there’s no pattern.
What is the word I’m looking for I’d better find it quick,
Lest I might lose my train of thought, forgetting this topic.
I know that it begins with ‘con…’ and I know what it means,
But my brain’s lost the connection, so I hope it reconvenes.
I concentrate but I cannot see clearly anymore.
The fog has now descended inconvenient, that’s for sure!
It’s lost amid the convolutions of my soft grey matter,
Where words are picked at random in my brainy box of chatter.
Consequential, contemplative, conscience are all wrong,
And I can’t hear my thoughts amid the silent verbal throng.
When I’m talking to someone sometimes they second guess,
The word anticipated that I struggle to express.
I vocabularise familiar sounds that really make no sense.
Is that a word? I don’t think so and not in any tense.
Back to the foggy mental skies that plague my cognition.
I wonder if I need a tweak from a brain technician?
However, now it seems that I cannot recall the context,
Of what I wanted to convey and I am feeling perplexed.
Confused, concerned, conundrum: I confess I need consoling.
This ‘pea souper’ has me beat: It’s really all-consuming.
These constipated consonants conspire to confine.
A contagion of conflicts all concealed within my mind.
So, I consign these worries as I learn how to conform,
To this frustrating condition: symptomatic of the norm,
Of post viral chronic fatigue syndrome. I must conclude
That my vocabulary for a while will be a trite subdued.
And so I am condemned to live for now with this affliction.
A ha! I think I’ve got the word: it is a CONtradiction!