A new year is coming.
We thought, back then,
by now,
things would return to normal.
We didn’t know that normal would
change its definition.
Normal now is like old brakes squeaking,
like gas you can smell but can’t find the source of.
The tension of death and fear is all around us.
It was comfortable then, before we knew,
more or less.
Now, normal is the tightwire between the scream that wants to
break these invisible cages of isolation
and the patient Aunti that speaks calmly,
“wait, just a bit longer. Breathe.
Everything is temporary.”
Normal now is connection from the shoulders up,
across miles without
smell or presence.
I miss full bodies in motion. I miss hugs and
inconsequential touch.
I miss not having to worry about the consequences of
every potential interaction.
Or having to pit my
physical survival against my emotional stability.
I miss small groups and
human puppy piles. I miss
noses and lips and jawlines.
I miss the contours of faces I love so dearly.
I miss my family.
But,
I also miss Glenda Trapp,
Kathy Lee Kappmeier,
Kay Frances Rowe,
Rebecca Bradley,
Sue Wallingford, and that
literal angel on Earth
Cameron Powers,
even after all this time.
I know what it is like to grieve.
I know what the loss of forever feels like.
So, in spite of all my misses,
I clench the fist of patience while I
heed the Aunti’s voice.
I breathe.
I wait.
I sorrow.
I wail.
And then breathe again.
This feels like forever.
It is not.
I have grieved the loss that does not lift.
This, my brain knows, will someday end.
These faces will come back to me.
Someday I will weep again
when at long, long last
a hand touches the small of my back.
But for now,
the Aunti keeps whispering,
“Everything is temporary,
sooner or later.”
And since she has never served me wrong,
I grip that truth like a vise —
a tourniquet
to keep me from bleeding out.
So I breathe,
and I wait
for her to prove me wrong once again.
© Sabrina Santa Clara, 2021