"How Are You?"
How can I be surrounded by people and feel like no one is there?
How can I be filled with thoughts but devoid of voice?
How can I not fear my death, but be terrified of the end of my life?
How is it even if it isn't my fingers someone slips through it is my guilt that grips me?
Why is a past that scars more soothing to me than a future that could heal?
Why do I think screaming in pain is more likely to validate a tormentor than activate a healer?
Why must those who forget me be the ones I remember?
Why must so much of my love be wasted and so much of my soul be restricted?
Why do I feel there must be a knife grasped by the hands that would hug?
Why must my sadness be authentic but my joy be artificial?
Why did his son not matter? Why does his son keep asking?
If you have made it this far, I wrote this because a friend kept asking me, when we were friends, "How are you?"
I realized the anguish I felt when an empty rhetorical question wasn't truly seeking a detailed answer. I thought maybe someone reads this and gets it-maybe not many. Maybe not any. But maybe one. The one it was written to reach, the person who now has someone to relate to, to feel a little less alone in their sadness. To feel a bit less singled out by life, a smidge more human in the best way.
Maybe he or she is like me-very ill, in need of a surgery, in fear of the unknown. Desperate to hold onto life because there is so much of it they want to live and so much they want to do. Yelling silently because the answer to "How are you?" is too painful to express vocally.
And I wrote it to those that ask these empty questions. To those who prefer to deny the reality and pursue the banality. But life, and friendship it isn't a Hallmark movie. Being a friend or a lover or a Husband or a Father is more than the appearance of being empathetic; it requires actual emotional commitment, sacrifice, and love.
So I hope this piece matters. I hope someone gets it. And I hope in the future, when it comes to your relationships, ALL OF YOU mean it.
How am I you ask? Alive. Grateful to be.
What else do you want to know?
But don't ask unless you truly want me to tell.
-T
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