Say What You Need, Just Get By
Thats what you want to hear, right?
Isn’t that what you want me to say?
To affirm that your horrid intuition has not been deceived by my forced laughter; my painfully empty smiles haven’t led you astray?
I don’t know what else to tell you, I mean what’s the point in talking when no one will listen anyway?
I’m okay, yes. I haven’t been my best in a while but be it as it may, right?
Yeah, I’m fine. I mean sometimes I seriously feel like dying and just giving up but no one wants to hear that, now do they?
They want to hear that you see the cup as half full. Not that the only color you can see is grey, or that you sit and pray to a force that you no longer believe in.
This is all in an attempt to delay the conversation.
You know, the one where someone hesitantly looks at you with
empty eyes full of tentative concern,
lips tight with premature words that burn their tongues,
you can see how their mind runs with anxious thoughts
as they sit an awkward inch away from you, and place your unexpressed feelings into a box
far before you have the chance to explain yourself.
for my own thoughts have burned far deeper than the ones you’re about to say
that weigh so heavily in your mouth you have a hard time breathing.
Hands folded into each other, as they try to smother their words with as much concern as they can muster.
Yet, after all of this, the only thing they can manage to say, is “are you okay?”
