Member-only story
Submerged
A Tale of a Pandemic
How do you emerge from the depth
How do you look at the piercing light above
How do you breathe in air without fear
How do you start having conversations
How do you mingle
How do you laugh with others, unmasked
How do you take in the colors of the world
that was black and white for so very long
How do you greet people
How do you sing-along to a favorite tune
How do you sit in a circle one foot apart
How do you look into people’s eyes
How do you tell what those eyes saw
when submerged in darkness
Did they witness horror in the eyes they loved
or did they see their own reflection
How DO you emerge from the depth
How do you leave your cocoon of the past fourteen months
How do you abandon your joyous solitary routines
How do you stop missing the quiet
when only the hooting of the owl permeates the air
How do you stop loving your commute to work
when only a handful of cars share the road
How do you curtail your poetry that flows so easily
from the depths of your solitude
