“I am in the room again.
Heavy heaves come from the machine,
that help make perfect breaths.
Your voice is soft, your hands are warm,
and I see less life than yesterday.
Tears come from my parents eyes and I
I can’t cry.
Yes, my voice is blocked and my eyes burn
But I can’t cry.

Your world isn’t bigger than this tiny room.
The sun won’t shine on your face again.

Your kids are here.
They all came to see you.
It hurts to see them say
goodbye while you sleep.
I can only watch.
I try to put on a brave face.
I still can’t cry.

Tears don’t come to say
how much I miss you already.”

A.V.

do you still dress up your sadness
or have you seated it in the corner table
to eat with the children?
funny thing about tables and tears is
they get absorbed into the wood
because no one is going to notice the spill
in time to wipe you up.
it’ll just be an unsightly mark
where the wood swells with your sadness.

long gone are the insects
you forgave my dear
don't rent your heart out
to too many ghosts.

My fear is you
It is rare
But when it is me
It is true
My fear is me
It is rare
But when it is you
It is true

When my tears dry
And my sobs cease
Do not mistake it for me calming down.
I've simply realised that you cannot hear my screams
And will say everything but the words I need to hear

When my tears stop
And my sobs fall silent
Do not think I'm doing better.
It just means I've changed the locks
And will continue to break where your gaze won't wander

When my tears shatter
And my sobs lose breath
You will hear everything in that silence
For the ending will be laid out before you
In a casket that will echo my story

An artist cries the most tears,
For art is a painful thing.
I wither my fingers to bones,
Perfecting every line of poetry.

I want it all to be perfect,
So much it starts reflecting onto my life,
The way I walk, the way I talk, the way I care too much.

Yet I am not perfect,
I'm afraid I never will be,
All this trying,
Is killing me.

Her tears first started after she bit an apple.
The instructions were to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge.
She was deceived by a lurker in the grass and flipped the Earth on its head.
As she left the beautiful green garden, her tears sunk into the grasses giving it and everything else life.
Her tears poured out like a tsunami when her son murdered his brother over envy.
Her ears and eyes cried when she heard the screams of her daughters bearing new life.
No one cared about her tears as she was forced away from her home.
Nobody protected her from hands that didn’t belong near her body.
She and her sisters flooded the oceans and seas with salty tears from their swelled-up eyes.
She was never silent with her crying, but no one ever heard her.
Her body as well as those of her children were consciously buried at sea to avoid the atrocities that awaited them in the New World.
Her disobedience caused mankind to fall, but her children were innocent.
Initially.
But has she not cried enough?
Are her tears not an acceptable display of how sorry she is?
The Earth continues to be fertilized by her tears and she’ll never stop giving it life.
Her sons and daughters hate each other and are hated by individuals who are just like them.
She and her sisters left enough tears at their children’s graves to bring them back to life.
Her tears are scattered all over this Earth and yet she’s still crying for all of her children.
Won’t they just learn from their mother’s mistake so they won’t inherit her heavy heart and swollen eyes?

-Mia J
10-21-2020

© 2020 Mia J