The reason you can’t actually cure an anxiety disorder with hatred, no matter how convenient it would be

There are people who hear voices. I mean people who literally hear like it’s bouncing down their ear canal and hitting the timpanic membrane and dwelling in the juices of the inner ear – the same voice, or a few, over and over like an avalanche, a moonstorm, a big bang of snotty pink frosting that knocks you over and kills you on the path to wherever.

Voices like

Cut yourself open and let the nakedness spill out to them. They will smell your silver talent and see the beating of your well-intentioned heart and they will still turn their backs on you as you crumple, a second-rate cadaver.

The whole universe can change when you find love. Unfortunately for you, that possibility was precluded as soon as that sperm met that egg.

It’s your fault the world is collapsing. It’s your fault that zombie cat died for a second time after being scraped up from the street and revived and fell right into its own grave. It’s your fault that skeletons cloaked in thin skin are roaming the streets on Christmas, searching for nourishment that doesn’t contain calories. Because your fat golden ass was born, the whole earth is going to burn and parch. And you dare drink water. How dare you.

You’ll never write this poem. You’ll just let it stagnate in your brain’s distended liver like mosquito-bitten water left too long in a broken wading pool. You want readers to cut themselves on your words and catch herpes or worse, but you don’t have the gumption to go out in the yard and weed out the first line. You’ll roll in bed like a half-full barrel of grog that envies rum and dreams without ever coming to be. Ballast.

It’s your fault we’re here, the voices say. You can’t blame anyone else. If you do, they’ll sense your distrust and shun you. Some will pull a gun and others a cease-and-desist and others will kiss the princess right in front of you. You can’t blame God because if he existed (he doesn’t) He’d strike down the highway overpass right as you stumble under it.

It’s your fault we won’t shut up. It’s your fault the schizophrenia, the different drugs and same result. It’s your fault the news and the election and the last vaquita. But it’s not your fault that sperm met that egg.

As soon as that sperm met that egg you had someone to blame.