Maura Yzmore

I Skype everyone. Older sister Nancy, Mama, friends from my graduate program. Move this way, that way. I can’t see your face.

We speak in brief bursts and talk of anything and nothing. We laugh at Larry David wearing a MAGA cap, not outbreak statistics. We talk about thunderstorms, not toilet paper wars.

I want to tell them the truth. I don’t want to be alone. Give me comfort, false and fleeting. But I’d have to comfort, too. All I have are dark quarantine jokes.

I try to close electronic distance, drown white walls.

Tears rise. I can’t quarantine them.

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His story “Soon” was nominated for a Pushcart.  Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, 50-Word Stories, (mac)ro (mic), and Ariel Chart. Twitter: @dudesosad.