visions

50% happiness

written in school while i was depressed as hell

oh, fine, but
percentages aren't all that nice
when your fifty is everyone else's zero.
what they call their fifty is
still decent, a life filled with silver linings.
they call that their fifty because
the lining's only silver,
not gold, and you call that a ninety
because fuck, seeing any shimmery lining at all
is a blessing that will probably
eventually fuck you over.
you've been to zero, the real zero,
the place that they had nightmares
about when they were children.
they stopped having them because they
convinced themselves that such a place
could not ever exist.
but it does exist,
you know because you've been there and
because you understamd that that's the
real zero and that they're deceiving themselves.
down there, there are no silver linings.
there's only a grimy black bag that
drags you into your own cursed land
of 50% happiness.