No. 5 Leeds, UK, postcode [redacted] c. 2019*

a crashout poem

No. 5 Leeds, UK, postcode [redacted] c. 2019
By Schereéya 

the well is deep

And each foot deeper makes me certain I will never see the sun again
So deep that now I know what it is to be inside a tomb 

tomb
doom
womb
subsume 

well 
hell
shell
fell

I don’t let myself see the images for I know my heart will be ripped raw from my chest the tatters left behind blowing ribbons of skin in the wind like so many white haired children 

Left behind /The well is deep /I saw once 

from on high the whole world covered in Darknesse

Darknesse ruled the land not the original Darkness for she is but a mother to the Moon, no Darknesse persisted, a murky gray smoke with form, no void, covered the land the smog of factories made bigger and faster and shinier by bodies fed to the machine the smog covers the planet and only tiny little pockets of light hidden within the earth spangle the planet with hope

I saw each pocket blossom, grow as it touched another and I knew we would make it through 

But I sat at the bottom of the well waiting to feel whole again

Nine months I cowered there willing myself to exist. 

“something is coming” I cried 
“if we make it through this” (me and my unborn child) 
“if we make it through this I will call upon Joy always 
because a Deeper Dark is coming.”

I don’t let myself count the shrouds 
“holy burritos” my irreverent overwhelmed mind cracks
I know more is coming 

I know our shores are safe 
until they’re not 

I can work until I can’t and 
I need money until I die so 
I don’t let myself count the buildings that don’t exist anymore 

Or I will crumble with them and who 
then will teach my children that We are from the Ground and 
men who burn their planet to be rich among the stars 
destroy that which makes them human

Photo by Vladimir Kramer on Unsplash

*Normally I don’t like to provide context for poems, but in this case I think it’s necessary: In the latter half of 2019 I was pre-transition, pregnant, severely depressed, living in a flat in Leeds with minimal income, on an expiring grad student visa, and on the edge of what felt like either spiritual awakening or sever psychosis and struggling to access mental healthcare through the NHS. I had this deep inner knowing that something massive and globally catastrophic was on the horizon. First case of Covid hit England in Jan 2020.

I didn’t go back to write about this experience until writing this poem in December 2024. It sprung out, fully formed, as a response to a “Direct Action” campaign that I saw, purportedly to draw attention to the genocidal atrocities being done to Gaza. The campaigns were printing posters with claims like ‘enter to win a free XBOX’ QR codes but when you click the QR code, it directs you to violent footage of children being maimed, m&rdered, etc. These posters were slapped up all over times square and other public areas.

I just kept thinking about my own kids who love a good QR code and the trauma they already inherited just by being born Black in this country.