Gaps, patches and in-betweens

My hands tingle with the uncertainty of every day. Like the feeling you get when you dream that you are falling. Four months into the lockdown. The defenses so far are: using space as barriers, putting shields and masks over our smiles and threats or direct violence to make people obey.  I got flustered one weekend trip to the grocery because a man was paranoid that I was getting too close to him. My protest is muffled behind the face mask. I hold back my retort. I can imagine the nasty words if he did that to someone else.  My youngest is starting college w ithout the ceremony and final picture proof of the past six years in junior high.   My protest is muffled behind the face mask and the attempt to not give in to quarantine fatigue. 160 thousand positive cases, every other week declaration of whether we are allowed to go out and no concrete plan in sight for the future.  My protest is muffled behind the face mask. I  attempt to not give in to quarantine...

I am an acronym. Specifically, I am an LSI. Locally stranded individual. I am also negative. As I've told people I've shared my COVID-19 status with, I never thought being negative can feel so... positive.  As in any era, language has adapted to the times. Clichés abound within this environment of uncertainty. My pet peeve is 'amid/amidst'.  In a land where people cough up acronyms and abbreviate everything, during a time of omg, ikr, smh, five months into lockdown, we swim in acronyms: APOR, all the quarantine classifications - ECQ, MECQ, GCQ, MGCQ and tomorrow they're introducing another one with a new set of do's and don'ts.  Instead of putting those that have not been thought about within an existing label, we create a new one each and every time until it all gets muddled up and loses meaning.  Then we are called stubborn. They send the police to address a health issue and use intimidation to answer livelihood.  Now people don't know anymore and thus...