when i was younger and people asked me

how are you?

i would always reply with

tired.

it used to drive my mother crazy,

if you're so tired, Ryan, go home and take a nap

for now, we will ignore the word home in this sentence, because i have never known the meaning of the word

but that's an entirely different poem

and right now i am too tired to write it

right now, my mother is tired of the frequency with which the word left my mouth, always outrunning the other unpalatable responses my tongue fought to say first

i did not realize until much later that

I'm tired

was less about lacking sleep

and more about the impermanence of it

that no matter how many hours i trapped under the sheets the night before

i always woke up in the morning

but when people ask you how you're doing they don't want to be made uncomfortable by an answer that says

the sunrise mocked me when i didn't go down with the moon last night,

or

everyone keeps me around because i make them feel loved

but no one will ever be in love with me,

or

my best friend told me last night that he wanted to die

and i didn't have an answer more useful than

me, too

so i tell them i'm tired.

it's not a lie.

i am tired of not having a home

and using my grave as its placeholder

my life is just a long walk home

but that's another poem,

remember?

i am tired of my knees buckling under the weight of my heart

i am tired of falling in love with things that die in the fall

that boy died in the fall

i am so tired i almost forgot his name

i am tired of my name being the saddest word in my vocabulary

i am tired of wearing tired like a second skin so that everyone can still look at me and smile because that means i'm doing better, right?

she just needs to close her eyes for a little bit, right?

i am tired of being on a first-name basis with loneliness

i am tired of trying to erase myself without a weapon

i don't want to be here

but my anxiety doesn't want me to leave the mess behind

she's particular that way

everything has a place

i don't have a place

i am tired of looking for a place in the dark

i am not afraid of the dark;

humans are instinctively afraid of the dark

so maybe that is part of my problem

i am tired of having so many words jumbled in my mouth

but none of the right ones to make him love me

by him i mean death

or god

or whoever comes after this poem

with hands that make you want to pray

and a voice that makes you believe in something again

i am tired of not believing in anything

i am tired of making metaphors out of the thing that keeps me pressed into my mattress

i am tired of wanting to die

but when people ask you how you're doing they don't want to be made uncomfortable

so i tell them

i'm tired

how are you?