Mad

A little maddening, to be in the world, to be someone _________________(adjective) in the world. Broken, bad, says an algorithm, my _________________(body part), and everyone can see it. Clear as day, once, my mind had been, and now it’s a storm of _____________(color) clouds. Daily, dutifully, I check my devices, then a pack of _________________(dog breed) begins baying in my brain. Everybody assures me everybody feels _______________(emotion) these days, it would be crazy not to, we’ve just made a pact not to show it. For the sake of society, productivity. For the sake of our children, frightened as they are. ____________(f-word)! Generally, I swallow my tongue, I turn to stone, I ________________________________(greek gods’ punishment). Generally, it doesn’t help. Habit now, heaving my ____________________(heavy object)-heart toward hope like a Millennial Sisyphus. I struggle. I toughen. I ______________(injury) and keep going, as there’s a job to do, or more likely three. Just last week, _________________________(judgment day sign), and they only shifted, begrudgingly, the meeting to Zoom. Keep up. Keep up. Kardashian kiddiekins are CEOs and you’re still playing __________________(kids’ game), jeer pundits, “self-made” tycoons, some YouTube misogynist with ten cars and two extradition warrants in his name. Loneliness is killing us! implores an article on an old friend’s page, which I like. Love, neighbor, welcome, rainbow and __________________________________(language you don’t speak), staked in guilt-ridden yards of neighborhoods no one can afford. Masochist that I am, in bed I eye the news, scroll till four, text ___________________________________________(man who has caused you suffering) so as not to endure myself. Night after night of blue light, of unsleep, of teens cajoling, You need these _______________________[noun (plural)], which I do not need, but buy, for the dopamine. Oh God, oh _________________(obscenity)! I bemoan, each day, upon waking, already overcome by some amorphous, unnamable pain. Prescribed, presently, pills for feelings I no longer feel, pills for the future, pills for dreams. Pretty sure I’m suffering, too, from ______________(phobia), which I’ll be sure to address with my shrink when a spot opens up in a year. Quiet, I’ve heard, is going extinct, like winter, civility, and the bees. Quietly, quietly (while it’s still here), I ask the forest _________________________________(question with no answer)? and it answers green. Reality’s on TV, and now there’s this new show, supposed to be really great, where ________________________(religious figure) and _________________(superhero) join forces and save no one. Set at the end of the world, shot in what looks like my hometown. Twitter tells me this week, in ___________________________(town you grew up in), a mob demanded teachers carry guns, hide their pronouns, add ________________________(unfounded belief) to the curriculum K-12. Unsurprising, I think, when I read the birds have stopped ___________________________(verb ending in -ing), as surely this is hell. Violence is trending, violence again, the forecast warning many days of ____________________________(weather phenomenon) ahead. Who can I blame? What is there left to lose but my temper, my sense, when I’m whelmed with terror every time I find myself in a theater, a store, a bar, a church, a parade, a classroom, a clinic, even my body no place to be safe? Excuse me, I’ll just be over here, despairing, considering the possibility of ________________________(existential fear), billionaires joyriding to the moon, the levels of the fishless sea. Yesterday, I dreamed God said there’d been a mistake, the Deluge rescheduled for __________(year). Yesterday, I turned my face up to the rain. Zen, promises an app, for $9.99 a month, its icon a cartoon countenance of a __________________(zoo animal), which all will be dead before long.