How To Singularize Epidemic

She said “yeah we’re in an epidemic”

Like the Spanish flu didn’t threaten to kill off half of the planet

Like my mental illness could be cured with a seasonal vaccine right before

she reminds us that it’s flu season and we should make sure to get one

When you use the word epidemic

in response to my polarities I hear

“you are not special at all” special being ‘suicidal “enough”

to receive therapy [with us] at this time’ special being it is okay

for you to forget who’s in the audience or the classroom

,who sometimes stops smiling, who sometimes never stops stress eating

, who can never seem to forget that THE ICECAPS ARE MELTING

You said “epidemic” and I saw all of my emotions crammed

into a McDonald’s Happy Meal for mass distribution and handed back to me,

smile warm like golden arches reassuring that I am not alone

but what you mean to say is, the stigma has a new face and it looks like “everybody”

it looks like “there *was a stigma” it looks like “there is no stigma anymore”

And I find myself atrophying over thoughts of normalcy mulling over every time I’ve said to myself that it is perhaps life that is shitty and not my brain. It is nothing. It is nothing out of the ordinary.

And yes I know that of course I am not alone, a given truth

but what does that have anything to do with the ice caps *still *melting?

That is all.