I'm fine,
I say, *I'm just a sad teenager.
I shrug, indifferent,
and they nod and they offer
small smiles of gossiping
wishful melancholy
as if wishing
they had enough energy
to pretend to care.

I'm fine, I tell
the mirror every morning
I chant it like a satanic hymn
because I am indifferent
just like them.

the sadness on my back
is fine for the day
when I can shrug
even under its reign
because I am indifferent
and that cannot change.

but at night I lay
in cloudy-eyed trepidation
unable to plague
the world with my problems
because it is indifferent
and so am I.

the world is always
indifferent at first
until the best
becomes the worst.