i’m craving a sense of normalcy

i’m in my childhood bedroom,
completely rearranged to accommodate my mum working from home
i’ve not been in my apartment for 3 weeks now

this room has the remnants of my teenage years
the books i’ve kept at home
the 2014 tumblr girl slogan
‘wanderlust’
hung on the wall

but the whiteboard in place of my pinboard,
two extra desks and
my bed pushed to the opposite side of the room
reinforces
that this room is no longer the safe haven of my teens

i’m in my childhood bedroom and
normalcy seems to be a fever-dream
at this point

i hold off anxiety attacks as i scroll through the New York Times
i try to get away from my social media feeds which are filled with articles
about the NSW/ACT border shutting,
ever rising Victorian COVID cases,
ads for handmade masks constantly popping up in places

the ‘new normal’ touted by think pieces is here
yet there’s still talk of when the year
goes ‘back to normal’

i’m craving a sense of normalcy
but my anxiety and depression
have reared their heads again

the news that they’ve resurfaced,
despite taking my anti-depressants every night
at 11.30pm
i still feel like I am
stuck in the headlights

knowing that the negative emotions I’m feeling are
more intense than i would feel if
I wasn’t depressed makes for a
weird relationship with my brain,
and i second guess
literally
every
emotion
i
have

i’m craving a sense of normalcy
i lie in bed and feel completely empty
i feel the need to cry, but
i don’t have the capacity to produce tears

my rational mind rages war against my depression
it tells me that I’m safe I have a roof over my head and I have parents who
love and accept me for who I am

but I can’t convince my brain to look at this bright side, at my side
with next years hopes and dreams all but dashed,
any bright side would be knowing what’s going to happen next week
let alone the future of our world with the virus

i’m in my childhood bedroom
i’m craving a sense of normalcy, but there is none

i don’t know what’s normal anymore.
my brain isn’t normal anymore
and there seems to be no way to find it as we are in the new normal
seemingly forevermore.

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