Fine

You asked me how I was doing with it

and I said fine.

You said *okay, good*

and the conversation moved on.

I drove home with the actual answer

sitting in my chest

like something I'd swallowed wrong.

It's still there.

I've been carrying it since Tuesday

or longer.

Here's what I would have said

if you'd waited—

if the conversation hadn't moved on

before I'd decided to move on:

I'm not doing well with it.

I think about it in the morning

before I'm awake enough to stop.

I've been calling it manageable

because the alternative

is a whole other conversation

I don't know how to have

in a room with someone's face in it.

So I said fine.

And you said okay.

And now I'm saying it here,

where no one will ask me to clarify.