​Isolation is difficult to describe without lapsing into angsty metaphors. It can make you feel trapped, and scared, like the universe itself wrapped around you to swallow you up. Or it can be comforting, like the gentle silence of resting underwater. It can be peaceful like the solitude of sitting alone in a park feeling the breeze pass you by. We wanted to hear the unique thoughts on isolation from the members of the Literary Arts Program. We hope you enjoy their work!

Banner Image by Jenna Mihalchan

That Lonely Feeling by Heidi Elder

Time Loop by Tara Fitzgerald

​Please forgive my sentimentality,
Accept it along with the rest of my many fatal flaws.
Ignoring it is no longer an option
Because of the way it flares up;
Like a fire,
Like a bad rash.
I miss her dearly.
She used to hold my hand;
And there is an empty space where her warmth used to be.
I have yet to find anything so uncomfortable,
As reaching for something no longer there.
My hand curls around air,
Seemingly of its own wishes.
I cannot stop it,
Nor can I stop the feeling of complete solitude which accompanies it.

Video by Galadriel Bond - Make Your Own Company

​The same grey walls stare me down every morning,
Every night.
The same three outfits are getting ugly.
The same meals are getting bland.
The same people who used to bring joy and purpose into my life,
Have become mere background characters.
The same activities are getting more boring by the day.
Soon nothing will be fun anymore.
It's times like these when you realize a lot of things,
Some you won't like, but you need to know.
Those thoughts are the only new things anymore.
Everything is so repetitive we mind as well be stuck in a time loop.
Hoping you'll get to soon see the people you love,
Do the things you used to,
Even the things you hated.
You hate being alone so much that you just want to scream.
You want to rebel, do things, go places,
Do anything just to feel alive again.
But you don't.
So every single night,
You go back to your grey cube,
Go to sleep,
And do it all over again.

19/03/20 by Rebecca Kempe

​It’s not just about what’s actually happening, is it? It’s about how it makes us feel. Because in times like this, our instinct is to band together, to hang out at each other’s houses, to get closer with our neighbours, to give each other hugs and kisses, to melt into each other. We want to bond with people we never thought to meet, we want to meet each other for the first time, we want to connect with each other, we want to find strength in numbers. But now? We can’t. We’re trapped. We’re told to isolate, lest everything get worse. Some of us are lucky enough to be with our families, but some of us are alone. And what’s worse, our usual comforts are gone. ​School is cancelled. Work is cancelled. Concerts and sports are cancelled. Museums, gyms, and libraries are cancelled. Restaurants are cancelled. Parties are cancelled. Playdates and sleepovers are cancelled. Grabbing a quick bite with friends is cancelled. Kisses are cancelled. Hugs are cancelled. Couples dating across the border are cancelled. Handshakes are cancelled.

​  Close proximity is cancelled. Anxiety-free mornings are cancelled. Stability is cancelled. Jobs are cancelled. Payments are cancelled. What’s left: the news. Social media. Video calls, phone calls, and texts that only remind you of how much you want to see your friends in person. Social distancing. Self-isolation. Mass panic-buying. Crashing stock markets. Layoffs. Uncertainty. Empty cities. Missing classes. Online classes. Online graduations. Panic. Paranoia. Anxiety. People singing songs while quarantined on balconies. Online NAC concerts. Monopoly games at 2 AM with your family. YouTube. Art. Netflix. Books. Good coffee. Good tea. The little things.

Cherry red 1969 camaro by Sarah Ryan

​Bela had never imagined she’d be watching Cate get a tattoo. Cate was a soft little thing that insisted on tucking flowers into her hair and watching the colours in the sky change as the sun set. She would cry if Bela stomped on a spider, insisting the spiders had feelings. Bela felt like insisting that spiders had too many furry legs to be of much importance in life.

But here they were, Cate laying on a padded chair with her shirt folded neatly on Bela’s lap as a scrawny tattoo artist very intently laid ink on the small girl’s hip. She barely winced, but no one could see the pain on her face, hidden well enough that the world outside of her would not notice.

Except Bela. 

Bela knew Cate like the back of her own hand. 

The two girls were not friendly. No. They hated each other, despised each other even. A year ago to the day they had gotten in the same cherry red 1969 camaro and driven off from a small town in South Carolina. Cate had been born there, raised there, kept there. Bela had ended up there, gotten lost there, felt lost there. They never liked each other but it had only taken them a night to agree to get in Bela’s cherry red 1969 camaro and never look back. 

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Message in a Bottle by Ella Pegan

I’ll throw my message out to sea
Let it toss and turn in the blue
And cross my fingers till they’re sore
It’ll one day make its way to you 

Trapped by Thomas Starzomski

​Trapped in my own home
Inescapable prison
Here forevermore

*insert formal goodbye*

Photo: The Man Who Stood Alone taken by Jenna Mihalchan

​nowhere to be, nowhere to go by Oonagh Calkin

Regression by Kara Brulotte

Isolated
Cut off
From when days weren’t just days
But
Mondays
Fridays
From when friends didn’t live too far away
When april led to may
And may led to summer
And when nothing stayed
The same
Now everything stays the same
Nowhere to be
​Nowhere to go
Isolated.
Alone.

​The only time I’ve ever truly felt alone
Was seventh grade
I hope I never go back to feeling like that
Hope this isn’t a one step forward,
Two step back kind of situation
Yet so many things are, I’ve started
Watching the same shows and reading the same books and,
Watching the same videos
If only to have something to hold on to
I have a few billion screenshots of facetimes between me and my friends
​and I look at them when I’m lonely
And pretend it’s the same
(it isn’t, but I can pretend)

Boxed In by Hailey Laliberte

​Anyone who’s ever staged a coffeehouse knows that the setup and cleanup are both difficult tasks. Most people think that the setup is the harder of the two, but they wouldn’t be necessarily correct in that presumption. The cleanup has to take place in less than half the time, and which seems impossible, and yet, miraculously, everything ends up where it’s supposed to be before 10:00. Trust me, I know from last time. Now, I’d like to think that the grade ten coffeehouse went pretty well. Afterwards, I was feeling rather proud of myself. I was talking to my friends, putting my coat on, and completely ignoring the fact that my red hair dye was rubbing off on absolutely everything. I’d just about reached the door, and my waiting family, when I realized that I had forgotten my backpack in the library. I ran back, hoping I wouldn’t be given yet another task that would keep my little sister up any longer past her bedtime. But, of course, there was one last task, and one last unoccupied lit student to complete it. It was a relatively simple job: deliver a mysterious black box of unknown function to the cafeteria. Shouldn’t take too long, right?    

The box turned out to be bulky, but not super heavy, and fortunately was equipped with wheels, so I started rolling it towards the elevator. I’d never been in the elevator alone, but I didn’t think it would be a problem. It took me a few moments to figure out how to open the door, which was probably a bit of dramatic foreshadowing I somehow managed to ignore. 

Now, I’m going to switch from the past tense to the present tense, which is a literary device, to show that from here on I was really present, and it got really tense. 

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I Miss You by Kate-Lynn McGowan

​I can hear you
Your lips moving
Forming the words
“I miss you.”

I can see you
Your lovely golden curls
Blowing in the wind
“I miss you.”

I can touch you
But you won’t feel it
Hands pressed together on either side of the glass
“I miss you.”

I can love you
Your warm heart
And your beautiful mind
“I miss you.”

I can miss you
Which I do every day
I miss your laugh and your happiness
“I miss you.”

I can tell you
How this will be over one day
That we will find joy together once more
“I miss you.”

“I hear you, I see you,
I touch you, I love you,
I miss you,”
I tell you.

You look at me
Tears slipping down your cheeks
A sad smile on your face
“Stay strong.”

We will get through this
No matter how isolated we feel
Because we are strong
Even in times of despair and loneliness.

We will find some way to stay connected
Because that is the nature of human beings
To stay social, happy, and alive
We will get through this together.

Photo: April's Hurdman Station by Irene Yu

Wait by Charlotte Rasmussen

​Separated from the rest for reasons unknown, we wait, expecting the worst. Locked away in the dark basement, we listen. Listen for the sound of footsteps sent to set us free, but they never come. Instead, we hear the creeks of people walking on the upper level floor and the laughing that we are forbidden to take part in. Isolated in the pitch black cellar, we wait.

Thinking by Rowen Schofield

I sit on the floor, doing nothing, saying nothing, thinking. The world is falling apart. I feel a bit cold so I put on a sweater. People are doing their best to put back together. I finish my school work. People are getting sick and dying. I go to the kitchen and have a snack. People are in hospitals saving lives. I sit back down on the floor, doing nothing, saying nothing, thinking. I feel useless doing nothing, but it’s the best I can do to help. I decide that at least doing nothing is more lucky than doing too much. I decide that with all the crappy cards in the deck, fate still dealt me a better hand than most.