There Is No Key

Daily, little emissaries
Short-circuit small loops in your thoughts,
And this is called anxiety

Or something similar. Will this
Or that minor catastrophe
Be endured, stopped, or avoided?

Behind them or woven through them
Lies chronic imagination.
It’s all memory, being used

As an adaptation, but one
That runs away with how things are
To create what will never be.

And what of the bigger monsters?
Every ancient mythology
Features terrors from caves or seas,

And warns, if monsters aren’t conquered
They must be tortured and punished
Eternally. The brain makes fear.

The brain makes fear, effectively.
Shoo away the emissaries.
The big monsters depend on small,

Cumulative habits thinking
The key is anticipation.
No. Float alone by a window.