The Year of Mask

The Year of Mask

What is behind your mask? What are you covering up? What are you hiding? Are you protecting yourself with the mask, or are people hurting you with the mask? Young children, please forgive me because I have no answer for you. The things they say on the news “reopening America,” “practice social distancing,” “flatten the curve,” “cases over two million worldwide,” “deadliest day for some states,” “health care system breaking down.”

The year of mask. You wonder and wonder. Your mind and your feet go from your bedroom to your kitchen, and again from your kitchen to your bedroom. You scroll through Facebook, Instagram, and turn on the news, and turn off the news, then go back to your Instagram, and Snapchat, and back on Twitter, and you listen to Podcast, and pause it after ten minutes, and you go back to Facebook again. The year of mask. You debate with your friends across Zoom, Skype, and Messenger on whether or not to wear a mask and you see those who are hurting from wearing a mask, and others who are hurting for not having enough masks. The year of mask. You play through every playlist on Spotify and watch every episode of your favorite show on Netflix. What is left to do? What is today’s date? What day of the week is it? The year of mask. You begin to use phones as they are. You start to call to friends you haven’t spoken for years for the next three hours and thirty minutes to update on their lives for the past four years. You start to get creative and experiment with every meal and decorate the dining table where you place your cup of Dalgona Coffee on. You drop the colors of your childhood memories onto a wooden canvas after another. You impatiently wait, and you imagine

to be wrapped in the arms of another again.

- A.H.C

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Author: Amy Hsuan Chiu

Published book: REBORN

Now available on Amazon.

FB: Amy H. Chiu
IG: @ahcpoetry
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