NORMAL

What is normal?
Yours or mine?
Crossed the boundary,
Never saw the warning sign.

To a world of madness,
That fluid fine line,
Now etched in permanence,
No exit to find.

Seizes your indulgences,
And all you hold dear,
From dawn into night,
Fraught with anger and fear.

Dreams and ambitions?
You won’t find them here.
Just crushing, dull numbness,
Behind the decorative veneer.

“New normal” they declare,
As if that’s something to behold,
But the memories, the good times…
I prefer the old.

They have no real answers,
But might keep you alive,
You might languish and struggle,
But don’t expect to thrive.

They have Band-Aids and tubes,
A whole chest of survive,
But the full life, the whole,
Cannot be revived.

Reduced to a photo,
A face on a screen,
Neither dead nor living,
But somewhere in between.

Well, that just won’t cut it,
This side of the line,
No thank you to compromise,
I want back my life!