Ink and Paper

People keep asking me if I'm okay and what else am I supposed to say but 'of course'? The real answer is a bit long and depressing, but if someone really wanted to know:

How are you?

A question I get asked like fifty times a day

From my sister, my mom, even the stranger across the street

They don’t care for details though so I tell them that I’m fine

I’m good

I’m okay

“You’ve been a bit down”

I’ll just bounce back like last time and

“I heard that things were rough”

Yeah, but hey that’s life and

you know me and

I’m just fine

I can handle this

I can handle it, I say

as I hole up in my room and crawl beneath the covers

tuck my head under the pillow and I hide

I haven’t gotten out of bed since last Tuesday

I keep calling in all my sick days and

I tell her that it’s nothing, probably just the flu

and I tell her not to worry, I’ll be back real soon because

I’m okay,

it’s just a cold

I’m good,

just a fever

I’m fine

The best part of my problems is they’re improving upon my acting

Everyone stays satisfied so long as I keep up that chipper appearance

The person that I play is a role that I’ve perfected

a role that’s soaked in lies, but so?

They all love it

The role is of a brave victim

a lost soul with no hope and God knows all the hell I’ve been though

A prisoner of pain, a bearer of burdens

a holder of heartbreaks from all the times I’ve been abandoned

I’m bruised and beaten and

I’m bloody and I’m broken

but fear not, friends

for I’ve been cured of my depression!

Dug my way out of that dark pit of despair

found the light at the end of the tunnel and

breathed in fresh air

I picked up all my pieces

somehow put ‘em back together

Now independent, self-sufficient

I’ve finally gotten better

Well, the lies on my teeth taste like that last cigarette and

that’s all I’ve really been eating since you left

but you think you leaving

did anything to me?

think it broke me down into nothing?

to a shattered shell of apathy?

and now im just a hollowed out person

with no personality?

well then

you’d be right

but im okay

and im good

and darling, i am fine

I’ve got a guy outside who’s waiting on a blow job

but he buys me lots of flowers so I tell him that I love him

I’ve fantasized of throwing up after every meal

not ‘cause I need to get thin, just ‘cause I like how it feels

I want to get so sick, that my outside matches my insides

and all my thoughts in my head circle back to wanting to die

I’ve been losing track of time, all my days just blend together

but no matter how many pass, I’m still under the weather

I thought that maybe writing might somehow help me

like I’d find that silver lining or poetic meaning

like between each line and each rhyme, I’d have an epiphany

like I’d finally find some closure, or maybe find some sleep

but I haven’t found anything except my tear stains on each page

and that last drop of bourbon

and no matter how I try I still can’t find the purpose

of anything that’s happened

or the way that life turned out

There’s nothing, no answers

It’s just ink, paper, and bad memories;

ink, paper, and a broken heart;

ink, paper, and a chemically imbalanced brain;

just ink, and paper, and nothing

But it’s so much easier to say:

I’m good

I’m okay

I’m fine

Author's Note

Always open to criticism or reviews xx Also, the title is pretty ironic considering I didn't even write this particular poem on paper lol. And even if I had, who the hell uses ink to write? People that are too damn confident in themselves, that's who haha.

As a side note, I had a bit of trouble with the ending, so any tips or critics and such.. really, I would love them.