I’m trying to work at this coffee shop
while a young woman with blue hair
and chiseled biceps, two tables away,
holds forth about how no one
should ever take medication
for anxiety and depression: Everyone knows
that stuff is poison, and if you just do enough yoga
or take enough supplements — the right kind
of supplements, obviously —
then you’ll be fine. After all, she is never depressed.
She gets sad sometimes, sure. That’s natural.
But she doesn’t get depressed,
because we all have a choice!
And I, who am prone
to both anxiety and depression, recognize
the staccato in her voice, its martial music, and
a tightening in my own chest accompanied by heat,
which I’m pretty sure is what we would call anger,
the kind I feel when someone does
what I myself have done.