Quiet Desperation
By: Shannon Frost Greenstein
– after Thoreau
To feel desperation
is the badge of higher consciousness;
to feel desperation
is the moment at which
we are our most uniquely human.
hunger/to hunt/to fuck/to perpetuate/Darwin singing in the background like a Greek chorus/and animals never have to worry about credit scores
To feel desperation
is really just our wish
for the gift of precognition;
to feel desperation
requires something more advanced
than the base instincts
of the ancient reptilian brain.
yearning/hoping/grieving/jealousy/terror/love/empathy as evolutionary flaw, and John Locke said we are all born innocent/John Locke said it is the world that fucks us up
To feel desperation
is to crave something
you fear will never come to be;
to feel desperation
is to long for water with all of your being,
dehydrated and parched,
lost somewhere in the Sea of Tranquility.
to want/to covet/to need/searching for a balm of Gilead just to numb the pain, and the exquisite sting of desire when desire is left unfulfilled
To feel desperation quietly
is not the same
as hardly feeling at all;
to feel desperation quietly
really involves a great deal
of silent existential noise.
we are not unhappy/we are not unfilled/we find meaning everywhere/everywhere meaning needs to be/and surely there is nothing missing/even though everything/feels so out of control
To feel desperation quietly
in today’s day and age
is a shining example
of the Principle of Unintended Consequences;
to feel desperation quietly
is the unfortunate corollary
of how we’ve chosen to live in this world.
but existence is a gift/and the world is a wonder/because our planet can make its own food/because some prokaryotic bacteria/once decided to evolve
And to feel desperation quietly
seems to me
exactly the same as forfeiture;
to feel desperation quietly
seems to ignore
our innate ability to adapt and advance
through the power of neuroplasticity
and the strength of sheer will alone.
so how can I condone/ a life of quiet despair/when I can exalt being alive/with all of my breath instead?
Shannon Frost Greenstein (She/They) resides in Philadelphia with her family and cats. She is the author of “The Wendigo of Wall Street,” a novelette with Emerge Literary Press, and “These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things,” a poetry collection from Really Serious Lit. Shannon is a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Her work has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Bending Genres, and elsewhere; she also comes up when you Google her.IG | X | Bluesky | Website
