Expressions

What are tears?

Clinically, medically, yes- I understand. The eye is a delicate organ which must be properly hydrated and cleaned... But this is not my question, nor does it hold any visible connection with emotion.

I cry at different sorts of times, different than I would expect. I cry when I read books that touch me, or when my sister makes me so angry I could scream. I can cry at the movies, or at disappointing news.

When my grandfather died, I did not cry right away. When my grandmother sobbed while cupping my face and smiling to soothe me... then I cried.

Right now, there is a well inside of me, I can actually see it in my mind. It is murky and clear at once, pale blue with hazy white clouds sliding across the gently rippled surface. I cannot see how deep it is.

This well keeps all my extinguished tears. It brims with the tears I blinked away at graduation for sheer exhaustion, the whimpers I swallow when I watch the wretchedness of the homeless, the helpless, enervated grief throbbing inside me when I flinch away from pictures of the Holocaust.

This is the well that I fill afresh every time I watch my brothers leave the house with my father and all I can do is boil over with inexpressible fury, because I am so sick of crying.

When I shed these terrible repressions, they leak from my eyes like dirty oil, flowing turgid and cold and opaque down my cheeks. I am sure they mean my eyes no aid, or else they would not burn.

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(CoffeeMom- if you don't mind, could you perhaps email me? {inkasrain@yahoo.com} There are several things I would like to express to you- all of a positive nature, rest assured.)