This is a story

This is a story, a tale like no other
Of fragmented memories and desperate lovers
This is a story of life in disguise
A fable of falsehoods, true love and lies

Fear swallows pills
swallows whole
swallows minds
While reason is solid and certain and kind
And the whole damn universe bleeds out in impiety
A freaked out, drugged up crush of anxiety

Make it stop
It hurts
This cocktail of ill-content
A medicated, calculated, screwed up experiment

We swallow you
swallow it
swallow them
Creating a synthetic self esteem
Washed down with a bottle of pipe dreams
Molecules percolating through the bloodstream

Followed by more swallowing, ingesting and imbibing to consume and to devour
Drowning in longing every minute and every hour
When passion withdrew, the spirit, well,
it just turned sour
A battle for recognition and a claim to power

She wanted simply to ask him why
He’d left her to drip and howl and cry
Prescribed with a life that bled her dry
Gently enhanced with a chemical high

She wanted mostly to have his protection
As the world blew up in every direction
She was all chewed up and spat out
All over the goddam place, saturated with fear and self doubt

Fear swallows pills
swallows blood
swallows sweat
Fortune is hiding, so take every chance you can get
This life is not getting any easier, honestly
As we watch the wars rage in total calamity
And the mountains and lands are collapsing in environmental depravity
With millions of people living in extreme poverty
With sea levels rising and storms raging voraciously

A pattern of degradation, our cities wasteful scourge is what began it
And we’re wondering if chat GPT will overtake the planet

I wish people would take responsibility to
Show up for each other
To be real and mindful and careful and true
To show up for each other through and through
Let’s focus on fixing the mess we created
It doesn’t have to be complicated
Just trust
And love
And don’t hurt one another
This is a story, a tale like no other