the track

my life is full of joys and success

and i am hyper aware of just how much i am blessed

deep down in my core i am truly grateful

but here on the sun-kissed surface of my soul i am dispirited, distressed

by every traumatic event

by next month's unpaid rent, by every abuse, by every betrayal, by every injustice, by every bend in the trail that was almost a break

we're told that depression is a chemical imbalance

a physiological malfunction

but the truth is that depression is a psychological symptom, not a physical cause

perhaps it's "pessimism writ large", or else just "optimism overwritten"

i've recently learned how my years of ptsd and burnout are doing the same sort of long-term damage to my prefrontal cortex as psychiatric medication

only without the benefits

that my personality has been gradually decomposing into a downward spiral stairway through the gates of hell

and as i circle around and around i see every interaction's intention as its dark timeline alternative,

i see threats in every attempt to bridge the gaps that have grown steadily between the orbits of our island soul galaxies

i wrap my anxieties around my sense of self's instabilities like a warm, electrifying blanket that makes my blood boil and keeps the cool, fresh air at bay,

that makes me stare longingly at sunsets but then quickly turn away before i have a chance to let the beauty stray to touch my heart and linger

that makes every smile fade too fast because it feels too good to be true so i overthink it away

but i do remember how to laugh sometimes, and not just nervously

and i do remember how to scan event horizons for the capsules of goodness that have been frozen in time

i remember how to identify constellations in the tiny pinpricks of light that take eons to get through my dark nights and know that this lonely rock i'm standing on is just one drop in an infinite sea of misery

that we've all hit rot bottom collectively

and that our only hope is to remember that we didn't choose to be born in a world of outsiders and aliens while our ancestors' stories echo in our ears telling lovely lies about the old worlds, smaller, manageable worlds where life was easier and people had character and words like "better" and "happiness" actually meant something

before we ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and woke up to see that we're a shame of cowardly lions scavenging the ruins of a paradise overrun by flying monkeys and small men hiding behind loud voices

that we're heroes-in-training

without swords

without shields

without training

because nobody ever taught us how to defend ourselves

or even that we *could* defend ourselves

instead we've been raised to shackle ourselves to the miseries of our forefathers,

raised to repeat their mistakes by raising the stakes that our very lives are riding on,

raised to space out repeatedly tugging on the sleeves of one-armed bandits

begging for the money to pay overdue fees for our borrowed sins

but this house of god is just another casino where the house always wins

on my black days, with their grey underbelly of bloated clouds threatening a shitstorm and heavy with acid indigestion rain

with the leaden thump of my charcoal heart pumping polluted fumes into the rivers of toxic sludge coursing through my veins

my body is merely a reflection of the outside, a world overpopulated with slaves to the cold and the cruel while we fuel the machines of our self-destruction with our desperate self-absorption

panicking our way from paycheque to paycheque

in our spare change time we build ourselves shrines and we tend to our tiny fenced-off gardens

we seek to find like-minded others to invite into our homes

but every time someone new trails their crap onto our carpet we become just a little bit more disheartened

we learn not to trust or take chances

we become shut-ins finding fortitude in solitude because isolation is the only possible way to maintain control of a social situation

keeping our own company because internal battles don't give black eyes

only black hearts

but this is the end

beautiful friend

i hear the alarm and i pull myself out of bed

i drink my drug to wake up and face the mourning

i spend dawn to dusk panning for the missed gold and precious stones that didn't wash up on the wall street banks of debt river

i spend long hours contemplating the simpler times

when we didn't matter

when our feelings didn't matter

when we denied and drank away our pain just to get through each day

when suicide was a crime against god because it robbed the lord of his pay

and how we've really still got one foot standing firmly in that grave

but i have to say that in spite of all this i am grateful

i may be tied to the tracks and only questionably sane

but the first step for anyone trying to save themselves is realizing that there is an oncoming train