One Year Ago Today

One year ago.
Today.
My 13th birthday.

My mom and I drove 
over to my grandparents
house, we walked up the stairs.

Inside, my grandmother,
my mom and I, three generations,
sat down at the kitchen table.

My grandma handed me a plump card
I tore it open with a smile already pulling
at the corners of my lips.

Out came the card, and out came
a small blue pouch holding two gold heart earrings.
I smiled and remembered my newly pierced ears.

That was back when pain meant the slight throb
where the needle had pierced the soft skin of my earlobe.
Not the death of millions.

That was back when we breathed the same air 
without fearing for our lives, back when 
commercials weren't about how safe and clean something was.

Back when I only stayed home from school because
I was coughing so hard I couldn't concentrate.
Back when we joked about having covid.

That was back when life was normal.
Just one year ago.
Can you even imagine that?


 

Zorro

VT

17 years old

More by Zorro

  • thoughts

    Winter is coming.

    Silently with chapped lips and 

    breath in the cool air.

    But, I think I'll finish this 

    half-baked thought later 

    when winter has come and gone.

  • Ghost

    Once a sweet violet syrup of passion,
    now the bitter acid of indifference.

    Once a giddiness like rays of sun on your lips in the spring,
    now a cold careless ghost of the past.

    I indulged in the newness,
  • Floating

    My head is in the sky with those puffy white clouds of giddiness and
    A foggy understanding of what is to come is all that inhabits my brain.
    My skin is warmed by hot star energy and the smile pulling at the corners of my lips