Category: poetry
is this depression?
it’s anticipatory grief
it’s the loss of a future
it’s here-and-now grief
it’s a pandemic
it’s anger for having seen this coming
it’s despair for our chances of surviving
it’s regret for all i couldn’t do
it’s fear for my loved ones
it’s deep ambivalence about being alive
it’s exhaustion like a thirst in my bones
it’s numbness
it’s a muting of life
it’s an iron veil
it’s a yoke around my neck
it’s amorphous
it’s inescapable
it’s my new normal
it’s all i got
everything from then on out was going through the motions.
everything from going to work every day to saving for the future to breathing was
a charade performed as defense against the inevitable
a tired eye closed to the light of the oncoming train
a battered heart numb to the cries of the victimized child
a weary soul creaking under the weight of the world
and choosing the path of least resistance.
yet we could not cease going through the motions,
could not stop the motion of the machine grinding towards us
with the threat of growling bellies and chattering teeth.
a few of us figured out that we could stop the motion of the earth
blot out the sun with the moon
compel every human into the street
if we imagined it together.
but most of us were too tired from work
to work on aligning the stars for revolution.
so we waited,
and plotted,
and planned B
all the while praying
for the rest to get as tired
as we were.