When a Man Cries

No one ever told me that your heart could bleed without a drop that anyone could see. I didn't know your soul could lose weight that your shadow could get thin. I had no idea that there were dry tears that one could shed while sporting a joker’s smile for the crowd. No one told me you could be naked, closed within yourself, folded and squatting in the black, as your pillow bled white against the dark but I have had those nights. I know I have walked miles alone left a trail three miles deep in the cement on the street where I reside. I remember and still live moments where everyone talks as if we are in echo chambers and my ears catches every word and my mind never processed even one. My mother never warned me that love could be so deep. She didn’t tell me that another could own so much of you. I still weep dry ice tears. I still scream in empty fields the wind against my back to mask my wail and hide my pain. I know I still function perfectly. I still roll the dice , last week I bought Boardwalk and when I crossed Go I collected my two hundred dollars. As far as the board game world knows I’m just quieter than I use to be but fine otherwise maybe even improved. So in these days of my haze as I function in a fog of loss I replay that moment over and over again. She is gone, she left me in a rage and frankly I was confused because she played the love game until the last moment, until that moment. I admit I'm ashamed how the crows tear at my flesh just thinking of her with another man. How the sun burns when I see her smile or think of her laugh shared sincerely with another guy. Apparently she never gave me that. In my blindness I accepted us as in love but she tells me now so many years later how she despised me but never said a word. Me the fool I still want her I still yearn for her touch. I would chew on nails just to sit with her. Why is my love so deep, so singular? Other people move on. I’ve seen it. She is gone, she wasn't even here those twenty years plus. She wasn't around when she bred our child. Why won’t I move on? No one ever told me that losing her would be like this. Told me that you could break every bone in your body and it would hurt less than this less than losing her. When I knew she was gone for good when I finally accepted it, I cried until I couldn't cry another tear and then I cried some more. 29~12~2014 Armand