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Poem
Peculiar words crawling over the pages of my journal
Leafs of beige bound by counterfeit leather
Small enough to rest within my palm

Masks, quarantine, isolation, Covid, Alone
Lyrics scribbled upon blue lines traversing 
Three hundred and more pages, one page for each day

Turning back the ink-smudged pages
A quest for what I have forgotten
Notions pilfered by a thief in the night
Named Rum

To page twenty-six I turn
The day you left wearing your blue mask
Stained by tears of unknown fright
“It is just the sniffles”
I proffer
From behind my unmasked face

You wanted to believe me
More than the three-letter castle of mandarins
More than the bespectacled practitioner
With a silly name and fat wallet 
More than the curve refusing to flatten
You wanted to believe


You didn’t believe
Donning your blue mask
Saddled by purse overflowing 
With vessels of purity
You left me

Page thirty-one
You called to talk to me
“It is just the sniffles”
I vow
“Come home, to me”
I am tired of being alone
“I cannot” you cried
Poised on the line between manic and truth

Page sixty-seven
A text-no voice
Punctuated with a red heart emoji
“Come home” I reply (no emoji)
“I cannot”
You lie

Page ninety-nine
Just a X
Scrawled in burgundy stain
I may have been drunk
Ask Rum, he never lies

Pages one-hundred and beyond
Echoed words defining a new norm
No one really likes
You do not call me anymore
(Or text)

Blank pages

Suddenly something new
Page three-hundred and eighteen
A fresh word
Vaccine 

Page three hundred and nineteen
You toss a text, smiling
Vaccine Vaccine! Wear your mask and run!
Followed by a flexing bicep emoji

“For the sniffles?”
I reply

You don’t

Page…today
New words—
Positive Test
For you
And your mask
And your purity in a bottle
And your Vaccine Vaccine
And your leaving
Me

Sniffle, sniffle
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