How you holding up?
High waves of anxiety
mixed with periods of surface calm.
How you holding up?
By a thread. I’m being held up
by a single thread and what scares me
is not knowing what’s inside
the liquid I’m being held up over
and is it cold?
How you holding up?
With both hands. I’m holding it up
with both hands.
How you holding up?
Like a bank with Monolopy money in the drawers.
Like a three-day-old birthday cake.
Like a middle finger out a car window.
Like a bad perm on a rainy day.
Like the hand of a mediocre student in the back row
who wants to show he’s participating
but doesn’t want to get called on.
Like the eyebrows of Winona Ryder.
Like the fist from a pile of rubble.
2022
Regular
Contemporary
2024
Mental Health
Anaphora
a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences
Hypophora
a figure of speech wherein a writer raises a question and then immediately answers it
Repetition
a recurrence of the same word or phrase two or more times
Simile
a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”
Symbolism
a word, object, action, character, or concept that embodies and evokes a range of additional meaning and significance.