I Fight My Mental Illness At McDonald’s

I need to at least break even/With my mental morning sickness/At this McDonald’s/Where I am finishing up a too-big meal/That cost me $7.00 and untold mental-health points/Because fast food is the last thing I need/With my diabetes/obesity.

But my imaginary Rev Tevye/sang his signature “Tradition” siren song of (with my altered lyrics) caloric seduction/And here I was/setting forth on yet another dietary setback.

Worse, I now had a Defcon 3 need to use the bathroom/And home was too far to non-explosively walk/And my mental illness, stemming from early childhood, made me perversively averse/To away-from-home bathroom activity…

With a wrench of effort I asked the counter lady/To unlock the bathroom/To which she told me it was unlocked but very dirty/And she was waiting for “the maintenance guy.”

“Emergency,” I said with gritted teeth.

There was a pool of water on the floor.

I took my pants and rolled the bottom cuffs.

My legs were now like squeezed accordions.

I minimally did what needed done:

Five lines of iambs in pentameter./(Make that six.)

It was not TOTAL victory against my mental illness/Since I felt like a sleazy thief as I slunk out/Of the ever-abiding Home of the Golden Arches/And not a healthy, fully-functional Human Being who wishes no one harm, ever,/But it was baby steps towards the truest of Homes/Which is my beloved Valley of the Sun/Unconfined by the walls of my apartment.

If you do not understand, count yourself lucky, my friend/That you are u afflicted/By this pernicious disorder. Or, to warp and twist the Bible once again:

Whither thou goest, I wish I could go.