Crisis

photo by lizzie rice

Crisis

third-year anna van eekeren

raise a glass to moments past –

ha, i can legally drink, pass the bottle, let the aether flow at last –

take a sip as the memories dance and laugh, whispers, fragments, of dreams seldom cast.

stuck at 20, perpetually 18, young, stupid, obstinately mature, a deep grievance, a pulsating alienation and need for explanation; oh, the rumination,

blink and stories flood, surges of longing and desires and hopes yet to be heard of,

is there anything that’s not meaningless or socially constructed?

–  nothing throws you into an identity crisis like a late psychiatric diagnosis –

existential, the passage of time, now recontextualized, now redefined,

how the fuck did no one notice? so many signs, so many voices, begging for validation not confrontation; camouflaged, masked, a blackjack’s old veil; how to unearth a hidden tale?

i guess i should be grateful that, out of all the possibilities of planets and stars and cells and people,

i exist,

not bc of some greater purpose or higher power, but simply random chance, a succumbing hour,

and yet, i feel so isolated, so small and helpless,

trapped in a never-ending river of emptiness.

“misty mountains sing and beckon” yet i’m running the other direction,

back to childhood, to comfort and familiarity,

Stop. Stop. the Finality.

the doomsday clock is now at 90 seconds (grieve society’s senseless ambivalence and willful ignorance),

but my Armageddon is unrelentless,

am i destined for this trivial presence?

i want to scream until my throat turns raw and bleeds in streaming colors,

and touch the skies and seas in weightless wonder,

and fill my lungs with sorrow and despair,

and exhale glimmering wishes into the night air,

to taste the lives i’ll never see, of multiverses, choices, of everything, everywhere in between,

and emerge, all at once,

infinity on the cusp.

still, maybe there’s an apocalypse about to dawn,

and this beautiful world will be gone,

but what do i know?

i’m only twenty-one.