“So, how are you?”
People ask me in the playground, supermarket, front yard
Do you really want to know how I am?
Today
A blue bottle is wrapped around me
Its beautiful blue tentacles bury further into my torso with every ragged breath
Leaving welts of sadness in unseen ridges.
Yesterday
My rage exploded
Popping like a dancing bushfire through dry eucalyptus
Acrid, suffocating, exhausting.
Some days
I cannot swing my feet over the side of the bed
Last week I cleaned every cupboard in the house
Except his.
Most days
I am a shadow
A cicada casing
The sunlight diffused and darkened by its hollow form.
I am an empty riverbed
Scoured and gouged and emptied by my loss
Waiting, waiting for the rain to fall.
Are you sorry you asked?