I’ve heard it said
That the cure for anxiety is gratitude
That writing down your privileges each day
Will banish other intrusive thoughts
With the simple brute power of addition
As though anxiety is a zero-sum game

But as with a child,
Redirection only works for so long,
It’s possible to wield gratitude as a weapon of escapism
To hammer out the shape of you to fit into your
circumstances and find them satisfactory
To help you contort your form and face into an
expression of benign acceptance

But anxiety is often not a sickness
And doesn’t require a cure
And gratitude is not a pill to swallow,
nor a secret weapon of the mind.
It should be free and pure.

For it is impossible to cure a sick world
by medicating the self,

Lest we become yet one more of its symptoms.