modeled off of Bukowski's "hello, how are you?"

a club I was never invited to join

this fear of being what I was:

sick.

at least I was mostly functional, I

went to class, not listening to a word that

washed out professor said, my peers

exchanged inside jokes, the room smelling like a cesspool--

the stale scent of fitting in

of last night's alcohol

of crappy campus coffee

of cigarettes smoked on the sidewalk

on the walk home from the bar

with the people that live on their floor

feeling nothing

except like a part of it all

except on top of the world

at an unaffordable school

free of feelings

of antidepressants

of broken hearts

of loneliness

of avoidance

of missing people

I stand motionless, jealous of their zest for life.

I'm wondering why you left me at the worst possible time and made it all impossible to attain.

hello, how are you?

by Charles Bukowski

this fear of being what they are: dead. at least they are not out on the street, they are careful to stay indoors, those pasty mad who sit alone before their tv sets, their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter. their ideal neighborhood of parked cars of little green lawns of little homes the little doors that open and close as their relatives visit throughout the holidays the doors closing behind the dying who die so slowly behind the dead who are still alive in your quiet average neighborhood of winding streets of agony of confusion of horror of fear of ignorance. a dog standing behind a fence. a man silent at the window.