Wednesday Poem: "How Are You?"

Impossible to deny

The story of this poem: I try to look for what’s going well in the world, but some days it’s hard.

HOW ARE YOU?

The next time someone asks
“How are you?”
I’ll unfurl the long shriek I’ve been curling, compressing,
I’ll let it explode into its full form,
Like someone pulled the cord on a life raft
And it burst into being,
A curse and a blessing.

The next time someone asks
“How are you?”
I’ll hire a talented crew of professionals,
Shoot a film about the nightmares,
Ask them to throw in some B-roll of where I go during the flashbacks,
Something confessional, 
And if we have time,
We’ll include a post credits scene of me signing up for therapy on my own dime. 

The next time someone asks
“How are you?”
I’ll bite the head from a Boston city rat,
Fling a circle of blood on the brick sidewalk,
Proclaim words from musty pages. 
I’ll bare my dripping snarl to blackened skies that mirror Hell:
An offering,
A promise, 
A consequence, impossible to deny.

“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”