scared

/skerd/
adjective
fearful; frightened.
"I wasn't scared at all"

Is it normal to be
scared of something that
never existed last year? Tomorrow,
it will be one full year
of COVID, 
social distance,
masks,
"unprecedented times." You know,
last night I had a panic attack
after my hockey tryout because
my car wasn't in the parking lot
and my mom didn't show up for
20 minutes. I couldn't
breathe; my first thought was
accident. My second thought was
COVID. 

I get scared
all too easily now. When a
person without a mask brushes my arm,
I can't breathe. I have
panic and 
anxiety attacks more than ever now
for the most random things, stuff like
my mom being late to pick me up
from school or my sister
coming home from swimming
ten minutes late. 
A mask hides my face,
hides my pain, but
doesn't hide the 
ghosts of the tears that
I cry each night because
life right now is living hell.

I thought it would be over
in four weeks. Just something like
Oh okay, things are better now,
life will go back to being
normal. But that never happened. 
I finished sixth grade
online, started and finished my
first real relationship online, started
seventh grade online. 

Things are looking up, 
I won't deny that. But the
attacks keep coming and I'm scared
that once we get where we want to be
we'll have to take another step back. 
Two steps foreward,
one step back. I sometimes feel like
my whole life has been that way. You 
make the team but
never play the first line. You
study hard but don't ace the test. 
It's always like that.

It's been 364 days
since I've been sent home and
I've never seen normal since.

We're getting there.

But I want it to happen faster
because I am still scared
more than anything.