Two and a Half Million Seconds

Two and a half million seconds That’s how long we were told to put our lives on hold To have to seclude ourselves from the world From our friends and family Two and a half million seconds Of no working No restaurants No activities No learning Two and a half million seconds Of buying toilet paper And face masks And bottled water And ramen noodles Those two and a half million seconds Are filled with panic And anxiety And anger And questions Two and a half million seconds Spent washing your hands And practicing social distancing And watching the news And praying for your loved ones Two and a half million seconds Was what we were told on March 13th Far sooner than anyone expected Far harsher than we could believe Two and a half million seconds later Will things be different? Will our lives be back to normal? Will it be safe to be around others? Two million seconds later: Things have not gotten better They have only gotten worse And the world is still scared Two million seconds later They make a new announcement “Continue what you are doing For an additional three weeks” We thought we were halfway done! That grocery stores could be restocked That graduation could still go on That track season wouldn’t be canceled That we could see our friends soon In these two million seconds we’ve Lied to our parents about where we’re going Bought a dress only to miss prom Disregarded the 6 foot rule Cried over the lost experiences Two and a half million seconds Turned into four and a half million seconds overnight Two and a half million seconds more To try to survive this mental game Two and a half million seconds? What a joke It wasn’t two and a half million seconds It was so much more That two and a half million seconds Became our last semester And our entire summer And the beginning of the next year If you really want to know What that number actually is How much time has gone by It’s fourteen million seconds. And now we’ve come to the point Where we aren’t waiting for an end But rather remaking our lives So we no longer have to suspend