Today the weather was perfectly fine. My garden is trimmed to perfection. My dog sleeps peacefully. There are more and more flowers and smiles in my city’s streets, the confinement feels lighter with all that sun.

Even our politicians look happier. The sky is clear. My office is tidy. I just quit my teaching job to have more time to think. I love teaching but I’m not sure I want to teach German. I never write in German anyway. And so, I am thinking about poetry, as I have time wondering if I should look for another job with German. But the sky hypnotizes me.

Today, the weather is perfectly fine. There are three bakeries in my city. The summer flowers smell of Paris. The Eiffel Tower even looks more elegant than usual, maybe it also has more time for itself to make up with light as there are no more tourists. The lives of millions of people in many parts of the world are in turmoil, and yet the sky is clear today in my city.

I write from my desk, in front of the garden, in front of the sun, in front of the shards of my life. My ex-boyfriend has been by several times this week, but we’ve hardly spoken. He anyway sends messages weekly to my parents. He gives them news of my psychic state.

My relatives think I shouldn’t have quit. And maybe that’s true. But with the time I have, and my translation work, I have time to observe the sky. No clouds are passing by. Are we already dead? I walk my mother’s dog three times a day, I run for an hour every other day. The sky sparkles as if we were already in heaven. Is this life just a dream? Or am I just drowning in depression?

My ex-boyfriend closed the living room curtains violently so we could talk yesterday. He thinks I quit the job because I’m depressed but I’m not, I just want to make bad decisions myself. He told my parents that I spend my time writing on computer, but that’s not true. Writing is not important to me, but the sky is, poetry is.

My father called me while I was in the garden. The sky remained clear throughout our conversation. We talked about a lot of serious things.

I read The Flowers of Evil, (Baudelaire) and I eat any way I can, unstructured, sometimes with rosé wine at night. I hope the confinement will end soon, I miss my friends.

Today the sky is clear, I took my dog much further, I took the car aimlessly with too loud music. I drove for a long time, as fast as possible, then I saw a shopping area. I must have bought about 40 or more books, including a travel guide to Montenegro, it’s completely stupid, but I wanted to get away, not to talk to my parents or my ex anymore, I want to make the wrong decisions alone.

I came home, my ex was not there. The dog had ripped the bag out of the trash, dragged it into the living room and hid a chicken bone in his basket. I petted him without scolding him – what was the point –. I phoned my mother to tell her about it and she asked me if I was okay. She asked me about my ex and then said she was worried about me. Why would I quit when I love my job? I told her the truth, I needed time to think, and I enrolled in a time-consuming professional writing workshop in september. I didn’t tell her although I just wanted to make bad decisions for myself.

I just hung up. The sky was clear.

I opened a couple of poetry books but couldn’t focus. So I took the travel guide to Montenegro, and I dreamed of another life, where friendship would really exist, where love would not be just a word but could move mountains even illnesses and make the future lie about what seems absolutely inconceivable.

I wrote two texts quickly – probably stupid – the sky finally darkened and I smiled. It was time for the rain to break.

I stroked a knife in the kitchen and dreamed of piercing that beautiful white that clogs our consciousness in summer. I dreamed of bursting the ceiling, of ravaging the atmosphere, of becoming that criminal who made the rain fall because the sky was too clear to be true. I closed my eyes and imagined that this friend I was sending poetry too really existed, that this inconceivable story was true, that I was taking this one man I fall in love though poetry to the mountains of Europe.

Then the sky flashed, its cloudy pockets suddenly ripped open and a dim light pierced my skull. I looked out the living room window, it was raining and the sky was pink-gray. The dog followed me, without a leash, into the city center, I walked for half an hour dreaming that when the lockdown was over, I would run away to the mountains, leaving my family a handful of surreal texts. I love them, I love the clear sky, but I want to dream, I want to be allowed to write, and to be allowed to love poetry.