inspired by Erica Hunt
I was oblivious, optimistic even, when the pandemic arrived and my youth grabbed the first train out, one way ticketed. I took the pause gladly, a minute to listen to the clock’s tocks, close my strained eyes and chapped mouth until the storm blew over. But the clock didn’t stop like I did. I took my time until somehow my time took me. Now all I can do is stand so the floor is no longer at my back.
Scrubbed of the outdoors and the sandpaper subways that once brought me to and from, my hands are uncalloused, soft and numb, but sanitized and germ-free. I stay behind walls, so far indoors I no longer deplore the rain, don’t even miss the sun. The hum of radiators replacing cicadas’ calls, hammering routines pounding me into cracks in the drywall.
Each day I dream of eloping, forgetting the perilous particles floating through the air invisibly invading our lungs, a contagion crusade silently surpassing our best defenses, natural and man-made. The air in my room is stifling, idle, windless, no gust to come and blow me one way or another. Am I jealous of the chaos raging outside? Understimulation, uninspiration, milk-and-water. Am I sheltered in or am I locked out? I run the warm faucet, step in the tub, and splash around, wishing it was deep enough to swim in, deep enough to drown in.
Perhaps I’ll start a riot, a spinning, flailing, moon-rattling riot, and try to stir up our entropy enough to hit the reset button, back to the year of London Summer Olympics and Mayan-predicted ends of the world. March was the gunshot, the stopped dead in tracks, held back and held in, grocery store empty rows, fearing those I do not know. April, May, June, stayed dormant in my room. July, August slipped through my fingertips, secluded spots at beaches, drinks on porches, unfreckled faces thinking we might actually be able to do this. September brought my last first day of school, in my room, undone face on zoom. October Halloween, I mute myself and scream. November Homecoming, stayed home no coming or going. December Holidays, packages with love notes all signed the same. New Year 2021, new president, still numb. January, February, nothing, nothing, now March again. My year flees, all on screens, this can’t be real, this can’t— I freeze.
I ease my whirling mind by going for good karma, for brownie points, counting the daily pumps of soap bottles and squeezes of Purell, subtracting the times I pulled my mask down on a stroll, multiplying the days spent inside without human touch, dividing by the death tolls, the vaccines, how the U.S. stacks up, quantifying my mental health by tears shed and smiles feigned. My point totals are spiraling, climbing, towering over me like a stack of books, swaying.
I wait in silence, skeptical of my neighbors, lonely on busy streets, dreaming of before, of invincibility, of not knowing how germs worked or the feeling of two masks looped around my ears. Of not knowing how to smile using my eyes on crowded streets because my mouth could kill someone. It is quiet as I wait, dreams and memories have quieted too, but still I comb my teeth and floss my hair, grabbing hold of paintings on the walls so I myself don’t float away.
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- My Mouth Could Kill Someone - March 19, 2024