Anxiety

A cultural cremation of the mind – c-cracking,

crushing, shoveling the billion-dollar industry down your gullet, up your nostril, swallowed whole

to cover the hole of anxiety - a patch-up job over the heart (don’t think – work, do, be, live, love, you

are a BEAST, my friend!); an endless, steady stream of white noise that permeates you daily; seeps into the constant

rotation in the background of your mind; you are saturated by a steady supply of ADVERTISEMENTS!

 BILLBOARDS!                                    SALES!                                  PROMOS!                            ADS!

HERE!                                                                                    HERE!                                    NO,

                                OVER HERE!!!

You are the accumulation of absorbed messages; you think in terms of (you + (experiences + genetics) x culture divided by media & rounded up to the nearest dollar, dollar bill sign

(see also: euro/pound/peso/yen).

You are not what you want to think you are, you are what they say you are – YOU ARE AN INDIVIDUAL!                YOU ARE SPECIAL!! – YOU ARE UNIQUE!! AWESOME! TALENTED!! (Like, you are soooooo

everythinggggg…) - it grates your fuckin’ nerves like a piece of ginger soaked in lemon and rubbed all over your burn victim body (metaphorically, of course - bc, shout-out to my burn victims bc that shit is painful, yo!)). It stings you painfully in your nether regions (metaphorically or figuratively – your choice, I fuckin’ guesssss);

down to the very fiber of “your being”, whatever the fuck that is…  “you’re better than this,” you say, but you cannot escape the encapsulated market of out-of-control capitalism and consumerism that [surrounds you] , so you

thumb through an AdBusters mag and think, “yes, that’s it!” but then a day goes by, and then another, and you’re in a daze and that magazine is beginning to pick up goo and dust and god-knows-what else

as it lies

under

-          other magazines

-          books

-          shoes

-          to-do lists (like the one you made of the things you did already)

-          jeans

-          a thousand million cords that you lose, replace, find; repeat

-          and, and, and, and,

you wanna make the noise STOP for just A LITTLE FUCKIN’ BIT! so you hunker down, say: “Time the fuck out WURLLLD”  &

bite/chew/swallow/crush that tiny pill (that is, by the way, way more powerful than it looks)

& wait…                                                                wait…                                                    wait….

                                                In fact,

time       has         seemed                                                               to                            sloooooooooooooooooooooooooow

                                                                                                                                down,

but then, that’s when it hits you. I mean,                                             really fuckin’ hits you.

And you feel AMAZING!! MAGICAL! MAGIC FUCKING PILLS! THESE are those beeeans, man, those beans

they were talking about

in-in Jack and the fuckin BEANSTALK, BRO!                                                          And now you’re just

talking a bunch of crazy/batshit nonsense, but you feel ALIVE! SPECIAL! UNIQUE!!!

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!! EVERYTHING !!!! YOU ARE A KILLING MACHINE!!!      

But thennnnn. Uh-oh. Wait a fuckin miiiiinute. Shit!

Noo no no no noo…

Not NOW dammit!! NOOOOOOOoooooooo!!!

Now….                                                                  things are starting to go

back

to normal. (Insert sad face emoji).

and you cycle down, aimlessly wander over to your phone-computer-gamer machine

and thumb through 30,325,207 apps and feel (only a shade) guilty,

(but not to worry, homie, you NEED those apps so fuck that)…

and time passes and you realize that you’re no longer high and your phone dies and you think:

AHHHHHHHHHHHH GTFO FML Why me??!! Why Lord, WHYYYYYY??!!! (even though you

don’t’ believe in “God” per se, but y’know, as a figure of speech or whatever)…

and

yeah,

nothing left but,

well,

blank space;

silence

and,

oh yeah –

what feels like

E

T

E

R

N

I

T

Y

.

.

.