“How are you?”

“How are you?”

How should I begin to say how I am?

I am not sure

If I even am living and breathing,

My lungs inflating and deflating with 

A sad clockwork regularity

My brain ticking boxes

Like a pro paper checker

Who, by the way, needs switch off

All the lights upstairs but one,

And my brain

Has none

But walk I do and talk I do

Like a well coiled spring

As long as I twisted lie

Writhing, strangled, mutilated

Into a million shapes by hands

As long as I twisted lie

I’ll get by, putting my twos and twos together

Pen on paper

Taps of buttons

Bills and orders

The numbing monotony of a happy life 

So

I’ll not just get by

But go far

Touch the tailored sky

And wish upon a store-bought star

I have everything that money can buy

And for everything else, I have Mastercard 

I’m envious of those who cry

For they can boast of a life lived hard

But I

Can hardly deny

That I have locked the door and given away the key

To a passer by

Who happened to just stand and stare for a moment

At the baffling nothingness 

Of my full cup of life

I cry and cry and cry

Because that’s the one thing I’m good at.