“How Are You Doing?”
A Poem
I’m good.
Just want to run away.
I’ve been feeling a little weird, weird as in dreadful,
a black hole forming near my heart that stops
the life/light from flowing through me.
I was thinking about my friend.
The dead one across the ocean.
No time to mourn because I’ve been swamped
with work. Drowning in it. Doing what I can
to ignore my shallow breathing,
deaths of global citizens, the hour-by-hour
the country descends into lunacy and sorrow.
Look at these headlines.
Look at this paperwork.
Look at how I’m still miraculously able
to get my sad ass out of bed, dragging myself
to a job that — oh, I’ll just say it —
feels like a prison. A work environment
willing to change me rather
than me change it.
I’m just tired.
I guess from the walks I take
to clear my head.
