at least there’s coffee
with the perfectionism
that stops my creative endeavors
at the beginnings of their journeys
at least there’s coffee
with my obsessive scrolling
and inability to
stop myself
at least there’s coffee
with the depression hounding me
day in and day out
and day out and day in
at least there’s coffee
when the world is dying
and humanity is giving me very little hope
that we’re anything but terror
on the earth’s surface
at least there’s coffee
at least there’s coffee
i’d love to say my feelings on
any given subject
are solid
but in reality
i’m more likely to be
ambivalent
or divided
or even
strongly one way, but
completely able to conceptualize the other
when faced with a fork in the road
i’d love to say i’d walk down one
a little ways, and then the other
just to see
just to see
but i know me, and i’d probably be
stuck
at the point of divergence
trying to see down each path
before committing
even to curiosity
and i think this might be
the fatal flaw
of me
fearing
social interaction
but needing it
for life and living
how do i even survive
one friendship at a time
i think
my “problem”
is that i have big picture
thinking
with tiny detail
brain
and that just makes everything
overwhelming
all the time
~~~
like
i can see the whole planet
and each conflict
and how the systems lead to suffering
and how it
literally
doesn’t
need
to be
this way
but instead of just thinking about the systems
i then ‘zoom in’ and see
each country
each family
each child
each breath of the earth
suffering
suffering
suffering
and i am stuck
because i don’t want to look away
for fear i’ve cheapened
their individual
suffering
and story
but it’s hard to hold
hundreds
thousands
millions
billions
of people’s individual narratives
in a brain trained to only concentrate on one’s own
so i panic
and breathe hard
and fast
and when the feeling has finally passed
there’s the guilt
there’s the guilt
and i know it’s all going to happen
again and again and again
~~~
so how in this world do i utilize
my big picture imagination and individual compassion
without falling into
obsession?
without falling into the chain reaction of
‘i’ve decided to help one thing/cause/person —
‘but wait, this other person has it worse/’
‘but wait, this other cause is more just/’
‘but wait, this other thing runs so much deeper
and has its tendrils in so many of the other
horrors of this world…’
how do i stop my decision paralysis
when it comes to helping
human decency?
[i honestly don’t know
do you?]
wow
so tired
barely able
to get words out
before being distracted
by something sleepy
like big yawns or
just gazing off
into nothing
so tired
wow
fix all the things around you —
clean the house/
mend the pile sitting to the sides/
ask for promotions at work/
and give every animal in the house
a clean bill of health/
and of course
care for your chosen people
one
by
one
and maybe
after all that is done
you’ll feel like you can maybe
allow yourself to look inside
and start to attempt to
fix
yourself
[just kidding, the outside fixes never end
but you’d rather have it that way anyway
wouldn’t you?]
characterizing my own self
pathologizing
my past
my future
but never my present
because my present is too overthought
to be anything but
half a moment in the past
or a half a worry
about the future
listening to others’
conversations
wondering how many sly eavesdroppers
have listened
to mine
the experience
of hating wearing glasses so much
that every time they smudge
or get dirty
you refuse to take them off and clean them
because then
you would be giving in to the idea
that you’ll wear them
for more time
in the day
and you don’t want to give the concept of “glasses”
that satisfaction
[as foolish and ridiculous
as you know that sounds/is]
so then
days go by
and you simply tilt your head
this way
and that
to get around
each splot of smudge
and speckle of dirt
and the glasses themselves
are made up of mostly grime by this time
but
still
cleaning them
would indicate
intention
and you don’t intend
to wear your glasses
much
anyway
it is only the second day
of the last month of the year
and not even winter
quite yet
and yet
the air has already started to taste stale
and my drive for surviving
ebbing away every minute
and i can’t see how
i’ll get through
next year
[was my premonition
as an angsty teen
just delayed by a couple of decades?]
kipventures 