Just Fine

How are you holding up?

The sound was flat,

like a stone on dry ground.

And the word, it came,

before I could think,

before the real answer

could even form its edges.

Fine.

My mouth made the shape.

My face, it must have pulled

into that practiced curve,

the one that doesn't reach

the eyes. A thin shield,

not against their concern,

but against the messy truth

that waits just underneath.

A hollow bell.

A lie, small and round,

swallowed whole.

It sits there now,

a pebble in my throat,

a small, hard proof

of everything

I keep locked down.