Production of the Next, Safe Happies

Years after they privatized the reservoirs, rivers and lakes

they finally took even the mountain peaks,

leaving us with nothing.

Our nothings mumble in abandoned schools.

Our nothings accompany us across empty fields

as we migrate now in search of our names.

Rumored to be durable and pliable,

a new-age psychoactive neo-material,

they returned to harvest our nothings.

Substrates for the synthesis of new therapeutics

marketed as the next, safe Happies,

users remember good-times they never had.

Although only a little better than placebos,

our new-and-improved nothings sell well at their Costcos,

effecting a new normal, the side-effects yet to be reported

as we migrate North in search of our disappeared,

their names on watchlists and school bulletin boards.