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
Copyright © Makitia Thompson | Year Posted 2026
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