Inside my bedroom
I can choose to weather this storm
Delude myself into
“Everything will be alright” ‘s
I can watch the sun die
Every dusky evening
day after week after month
And it can simply be
A gorgeous sunset
But downstairs
Reality tiptoes in
Grocery bags filled with
Life
Breaths of the outside world
Hand sanitizer and blue masks
The news telling it like it is
I want answers, information
But it only takes
Sixty minutes
To find that nobody has them
Plunging me into
numb panic

Outside
The reminiscing, the yearn
Is simply unbearable
The seasons change
Winter melts into spring
And spring sweats into summer
Signify time whipping past
Deftly ripping youth from my grasp
Missing all the memories
I thought belonged to me
But never will

On my bike
Pedaling along the sidewalks
The few blocks
To the library
I can barely suppress
The urge to go beyond
Down the street, to the school
My mind’s foolish notion
That if I go far enough
My friends will be waiting
And jovially shout,
“April Fools!”

But April is long gone
a fight for my sanity
And I am not a fool
Even so, there is nothing more
This little gray stone
flailing in a flood on the moor
Can do

Just leaving it up whatever God & fate
the struggle to hold my breath and wait
during this earth-shattering quake
And pray if, when I wake up some day
The world will be some version of
okay