Makitia Thompson Poet Narrative

Yes, I Cry

Yes,
I cry.

Not always loudly.
Not always where people can see.
Not always in ways
that make sense
to anyone but me.

But yes,
I cry.

I cry in the kitchen
when the silence
lands wrong.
I cry in parked cars
after pretending too long.
I cry when memory
arrives uninvited
and sits beside me
like it still belongs here.

I cry for what left.
For what stayed.
For what broke in me
and never quite returned
the same.

I cry for people
I still love in private.
For versions of myself
I could not save.
For all the softness
I had to bury
just to survive
what did not love me gently.

And I know
there are people
who hear that
like weakness.

Who think tears
mean fragility.
Instability.
A failure to move on
with enough elegance
to be respected.

But they are wrong.

Because crying
is not always collapse.

Sometimes
it is proof
that I am still here.

Still feeling.
Still carrying.
Still refusing
to let pain
turn me to stone
just because the world
would find that easier
to look at.

So yes,
I cry.

And if that makes me
too tender,
too honest,
too much,
then so be it.

I have survived things
that tried to make me
emotionless.

Tears are how I know
they didn’t win.



A Poem from my collection, in honor of Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month

♡Like1

Share Poem

---

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Alison A Smith nee Howarth September 4, 2026 at 8:26 PM This is a deeply moving free-verse poem whose short, plainly spoken lines create an intimate, almost confessional rhythm. The recurring “Yes, / I cry” works beautifully as both an admission and a declaration of strength. Its emotional arc is especially powerful: grief is named without spectacle, then transformed into evidence of survival. “Tears are how I know / they didn’t win” is a memorable, resolute closing for a poem that honours vulnerability as courage.