A few months ago I cried in front of a guy. It was after I learned how to cry properly so I did it. I just let the tears fall down my face. I didn’t will them not to come and end up with a horrible headache, I just allowed them to be.
He saw them and asked if he could wipe them away.
No. They’re mine. I put them there.
I’m sure that at the time I just didn’t want to be touched but the words fell out. And saying it, I felt it, I took another step towards being unembarrassed about being a person who cries sometimes.
He said it was the saddest and most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.
Which I suppose was a nice byproduct.
It happened again tonight, I cried in front of someone. In public, on a train. I didn’t wipe any of it away, I just looked straight forward and relaxed the muscles in my face and let tears come out of my eyes.
I didn’t even really notice how it felt in my eyes. I was distracted by the way it felt on my cheeks. Like some sort of upended water torture, relaxing instead of… torture. A tear tracking it’s way from my eye to my lip, coaxing me to form words. A tiny droplet, my eye telling me to open up my mouth and do something about the problem.
I couldn’t help but think of that line from Assassins.
I did it so I’d know where I was coming from. So I’d have some place to come from, some place to go.
I left the little salty track as a reminder of where the feeling had come from and where I had to go.
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