the cruelty of air

i said i didn’t want to go into grad school because i didn’t want to do research, because i didn’t like the feeling of not knowing what i was doing, of not knowing whether something i do will work; yet look where i am now, pretending i know anything about llm-whispering, setting the company’s dollar bills ablaze, choking on my ego in a place that disapproves it.

i said that god gives gifts to those who don’t want it, as complaint toward others who are in places i wish i could be in, against whom i weigh myself lacking; yet now i find myself drowning in riches that millions would envy, in a land flooding with milk and honey, and i don’t want any of it for myself, for i smell the drop of blood in the bowl of milk.

i said i’ve found the wellsprings of happiness: time spent with loved ones and designs i pour myself into; i said i’ve understood the seasons of my sadness, and how they trail after rivers of sorrow; i said i’ve walked through tartarus aplenty and escaped each time; yet now i lie in a valley redolent of ash and resplendent in death, dark sands covering a slate-soot sky, and i’ve forgotten it all.

no hues in my palette can save me from repeating myself, when it comes to portraying the cruelty of air.

⁂

do the meds work because i’m still alive, or do they not work because i’m still depressed?

can my depression be endogenous when i can always find an environmental factor to pin it on?

is there a train of thought i can follow to escape the maze of late-stage capitalism?