madness yet lingers, though I can smile and laugh
I can spend time with loved ones and try
try to open my heart to all that’s around me
and sure, there are those thoughts
–thoughts that the new people I meet will be just as screwed up as everyone I knew before, but less original
thoughts that my closest friends are slipping through my fingers because they need Love and I have nothing to give
thoughts that I am falling away from them because I need Love, and they deny me—
but that’s not the madness, that’s standard bitterness, sadness, and pessimism
madness is simply my natural reaction to all of this goddamned emotion
and I concentrate on soda cans, convinced that if I just Will hard enough, I can lift it with my mind
or I look at my ceiling and try hard to see past the edge of the universe, or into the depths of the black hole
and I find myself remembering what disgusting creatures humans are, so concerned with just feeling better or okay
it sets an ugly backdrop for all of that joy and beauty, the gratuitous insincere altruism and vain personalized love
like how proud I am that I fill my cats’ food bowl and empty the litter box
until I wonder what difference it will make that the food has been transformed into shit
I lie in bed and stare at the wall, hoping to soon be relieved of the responsibility of Loving