"You clap for us but still meet friends, we smile and carry on"

The following emotive poem and message were submitted to the Denbighshire Free Press by a nurse known only as 'T':

Please stay home to protect the essential workers, we are not a faceless corporate body, we are your friends, your family, your neighbours.

For my fellow nurses and social care workers, doctors, teachers, the super team at the supermarket - who make me cry with your kindness, the police, and the fire service and for every essential worker who continues to smile and carry on.

Dark Days

You think that we're all doing fine, we smile and carry on.

We give the love and care we can, we smile and carry on.

We take the knocks, we see the pain and we smile and carry on.

Tomorrow we come back again, with a smile we carry on.

We face uncertainty and death, we smile and carry on.

We worry for our families but we smile and carry on.

We take your anger and your pain, we smile and carry on.

You clap for us but still meet friends, we smile and carry on.

You see the smile you think we're fine, and so you ask for more.

You cannot see beyond the smile, and see we're on the floor.

Each day a battle getting up, a battle to be won.

And still the nurse inside me cries 'just smile and carry on'.

We grab a meal, we long for sleep but we smile and carry on.

The days become relentless but we smile and carry on.

We can't foresee an end to this.

You'll miss us when we're gone...

'T'