Global Insides--the Vaccine

A year into the pandemic, with a glimmer of hope that the vaccine will provide herd immunity and a return to "normal," how are we? In this third book of the global insides series, peer into the lives of people all over the world, view their insides through their art, and learn their deepest thoughts and feelings at a very vulnerable moment for humanity. You will find verse, prose, and images from Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hong Kong, Hungry, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Palestine, Poland. Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Tanzania, Spain, the UK, and the U. S.
Excerpts from this book:

"The avenues are filled with ghosts of 'how it used to be'
Tediousness scorching, taunting my mind
Anguish gets under my skin crawling like thousands of poisonous spiders
These feet have forgotten how it feels to walk a mile away from here"
- Alejandro from Jember, East Java, Indonesia

"I sold food, I'll tell them. I'd like to think I helped. Groceries may not have changed the world, but they sure did keep you going. I won't impress them much, I think. I'll just be their crazy grandmother, shutting doors with my feet, pushing up my glasses with the knuckle of my thumb so my fingers don't brush my face."
- Yveline from Duffel, Belgium
"My hands always smell of disinfectant.
All my face masks are smeared with lipstick
no one can see.
I no longer know why I paint my lips.
I hide lips and teeth and smile behind a mask.
I've given up smiling behind this cloth. Too damn
much effort. I don't even try to talk
with my eyes anymore."
- Marianne from Chicago, IL, USA

"death brutally took everything
funerals in the middle of parks
as if they had been torn
from photos of the war,
whole families
devoid of beating hearts
when it was time
to rejoice over flowers in bloom,"
- Norbert from Góra, Poland

"you can feel death coming for you,
I have asthma
but children are not vaccinated,
why not?
we are at risk too,
I can feel death coming for me."
- Giulianna from Lima, Peru

"Yes, we will insult each other and swear, but also hug and laugh again, meet, just talk, kiss and hold another's hand. Shake the silence from the carpets and curtains, fill the streets. We will be more ourselves. In fact, it is enough that we will be more. We will be like butterflies, who, closed away from everything in cocoons, learned how fragile they are."
- Ian from Prague, Czech Republic