We don’t always project what’s in our hearts,
The darkness, the pain,
The struggle to climb out of despair’s abyss,
The struggle I so often give up.

Religion, myth—
These are culturally ingrained coping mechanisms,
In a cold, bleak world.
As the natural world—
The true sacredness,
Beauty that suspends thought
And engages us with the divine—
Is less a part of our cityscape,
Religion and myth fade to relics.
The elements of power:
Earth, water, air, fire
Are not as influential as they once were,
As we cloister ourselves inside,
Hunched over computer screens.

I stop taking antidepressants
Because I want to stop feeling numb,
For if gods and heroes
And communion with nature
Are specters,
So am I,
Lethargic,
Unconvinced of any divinity
As the hate and violence reach new national heights
For me in my lifetime.

I can help others combat their darkness,
For heroes still exist among us
And the gods are in each and all of us.
But when I am alone,
I fail to shake away my pain,
In my world fallen from paradise,
From youth’s dreamed Golden Age.