A combination of heredity and inaccessible causes
having weighted me down psychically to the point
of moving in a trudge even when the going’s level,
I try not to glower or say cynical things of the sort

that led a colleague to call me spring-loaded on no.
It’s a feat of impersonation to avoid the impression
of being a guy who’s guaranteed to drag you down
into his wreckage of a way of looking at the world,

so I feign initiative and energy, say “Yes,” “Let’s”
and “Can,” monitoring my observable exuberance
so as to seem, while medication free, the way that
medicine once made me feel, act, and therefore be.