First Day in a Breath
Emilie Pitts
I can’t breathe.
Driving in the car, my social anxiety sits in my throat so the air feels loud but I am silent as I pull into the library parking lot.
I can’t breathe. My mask fogs my glasses when I speak which is embarrassing but they can’t see my cheeks turn red as I listen to my boss stress about our situation and I just think about my parents coming to visit.
I can’t breathe. A wave at the beach crashes over my head so that I can't see which way is up or down and all I want to do is sink but all I can do is float which prompts my dad to swim to me and I can’t hide my red cheeks this time.
“I can’t breathe,” reads a sweatshirt for sale on Twitter and I sneer at how a company is trying to profit off a movement sparked by the death of a black man, but I keep scrolling and I see fredonia friends tweet about people not wearing masks and sex behind dumpsters and I wonder when the day will end because everything just feels like wave after wave crashing over my head as I float and sink at the same time, yet I keep scrolling into the late hours of the night.
I hit the home button and set my alarm.
I breathe.
I close my eyes.
Driving in the car, my social anxiety sits in my throat so the air feels loud but I am silent as I pull into the library parking lot.
I can’t breathe. My mask fogs my glasses when I speak which is embarrassing but they can’t see my cheeks turn red as I listen to my boss stress about our situation and I just think about my parents coming to visit.
I can’t breathe. A wave at the beach crashes over my head so that I can't see which way is up or down and all I want to do is sink but all I can do is float which prompts my dad to swim to me and I can’t hide my red cheeks this time.
“I can’t breathe,” reads a sweatshirt for sale on Twitter and I sneer at how a company is trying to profit off a movement sparked by the death of a black man, but I keep scrolling and I see fredonia friends tweet about people not wearing masks and sex behind dumpsters and I wonder when the day will end because everything just feels like wave after wave crashing over my head as I float and sink at the same time, yet I keep scrolling into the late hours of the night.
I hit the home button and set my alarm.
I breathe.
I close my eyes.