“2020 – The year my hair turned from brown to silver”

Flapping, alligator skin swings from my arms and pathetic legs,

and the silver hair that 2020 had unnaturally bleached, springs crazy from the diving board of my head to float

to the bathroom floor.

Outward signs of a poisonous year which some had survived, as others had withered…internally shattered.

The secret enemy, who dissolved family parties into food for refrigerated meat lockers. A devil that smiled as

its deadly talons often proved too quick even for the morticians’ perpetual fires.

It sucked new life from each innocent and eager conversation. It waited for victims to simply pass through a

flume of infected air, eager to work its deadly magic into a new host.

Survivor lines crowd many faces now, as the guilty living try to pretend the deadly year hadn’t happened. And

they sometimes fill the silence between words with nervous laughter.

No amount of moisturizer can reduce the horror which will remain, and as I look into the mirror I see a woman

who reflects an age in which numbers no longer matter.