“…the like course is to be taken with this as in other melancholy: …They must not be left solitary, or to themselves, never idle, never out of company.” -Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy

For GEN-Z J.J.K

A running sickness lingers in the pit

Of stomachs frail and empty. And our minds

Are cluttered with the thoughts of all we’ve left

Behind. And just when death knocks and we sit

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Beside it, we are called to go to work—

To go to school—It feels so stupid, dumb,

Senseless; what is Gatsby? What are sums? Why

Ruminate the frame of cells, should our cells die?

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Yet something lingers lightly, even here—

The quiet of a spring afternoon, birds

Who serenade new songs; hugs from loved ones,

Our crushes fulfilled, our favorite drink delivered.

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For good or ill the good persists. I weep,

And wonder, how then do we, too, persist?

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