Temple of Athena the Savior

This is normal, you tell yourself

As you drag yourself to a job you hate

To make just enough money to pay for someone else’s home.

Pop a pill to get thru the day

Drink a fifth to get to sleep

Convince yourself that this is normal –

Another day of your life, gone. 

.

Bzz bzz bzz

The locusts swarm the stores

Consume consume consume 

A hit of dopamine when the credit card swipes

More useless junk, another link in the chain of debt – 

And the hit doesn’t even last as long as it used to. 

.

Chatter Chatter chatter

TV volume turned to 11 – as loud as it goes 

To drown out your thoughts 

Desperate to ignore the empty hollow in your chest,

The sense that life is meaningless (but maybe it’s just life like this?).

.

Everyone else is doing fine, Doing well

Huge smiles on Facebook and the ‘Gram, 

They look so happy

You must be the one who’s wrong.

But your rich cousin with the long blonde hair, the beautiful children and huge house – 

Her husband hasn’t touched her in years.
They sleep in separate rooms,

As he rubs himself raw to violent videos

Of girls his daughter’s age being debased.

Thank God we aren’t prudes like we used to be!

This is good …. Right?

Drown out your doubts, stuff it down.

The anxiety attacks are a result of a neurological condition,

Not intuition that something’s wrong.

.

Our entire society can’t be sick, right?

No, it’s me, I’m the broken one.

This is normal, this normal –

Everyone says it’s normal!

Obviously I’m not normal.

Well if society says this is normal,

I’m done with normal.