dumpster fire.

How do you fix broken, shattered glass when all the pieces are scattered to the wind? How do you clean up an oil spill when its slick darkness infects the water, farther and farther down? Nope, start again. I can’t do it with this with poetic shit. ​ This year was bad even before it got worse. My grandpa died in March. The cancer came back. He was tired of fighting. I’m tired of fighting, too. Why did he get to leave, but I have to stay? My grandma had a heart attack the morning of his funeral. My antidepressants stopped working. I couldn’t get the dose upped until months later. By then, my extreme mood swings had returned and I bounced like a pinball between fury, desolation, and complete nothingness. ​ Isn’t that an oxymoron; complete nothingness? I feel completely nothing. This year is almost complete, but it’s been a vacuum of nothing and everything. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing in the month of April, but I could tell you every shitty event that has happened between then and now. COVID, obviously. Black Lives Matter, again. We did this in 2014, and yet police are still killing innocent black people, six years later. Murder hornets. Where did those guys go? Australia on fire. California on fire. The Beirut explosion. Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. The resulting domino effect of political power grabbing. And we’re only 75% through the year. There’s an election in a month that decides whether we get back on track towards a democracy or slip further towards fascism. ​

Today is sometime in October, or also the 218th of March. Time has stopped since then. I didn’t change out my clothes from winter to summer. Not that I needed to, since I was constantly inside, within the same four walls, day after day after day, until the days became blended as well. The only indication I had of time passing was my next assignment deadline. Eventually, the warm weather faded as well. My wardrobe was back in season, like summer never happened. It was like when you forget to change a clock for daylight savings time for so long it eventually tells the right time again. ​ Look, I can’t be optimistic about this year. I can’t say everything is going to turn out okay, because it’s not. No one knows that. Anyone who says so is a liar and not paying attention. Our world is literally on fire; from climate change or a gender reveal party gone wrong, take your pick. It’s bad, I admit. But I also can’t throw in the towel completely. I’ll admit I can’t be all rainbows and sparkles about this year. But I can’t completely ignore the few good things that came my way. ​ I celebrated my one year anniversary with my boyfriend. I started, worked, and left an amazing summer job. I turned twenty. My cat turned two. I started another semester. Time moved forward, regardless of how many waves of bad and worse news. This year is a dumpster fire. Although, the one good thing about burning trash—you're getting rid of it. Hopefully. ​ Hindsight 20/20, I guess.