When They Cry

When my father cries,

He sticks his lip out,

Like a kid,

His jaw shaking,

Eyes red.

He cries when a truth is told;

Someone’s leaving,

The end is near,

Or a fault is exposed,

Guilty

Ugly.

He cries when I mention graduation.

He cried at both his weddings.

Apparently,

He cried when he proposed to Mama.

When she weeps,

You don’t notice.

It rarely happens.

You’ll be watching a film,

Most of the time,

At least that’s when I see her.

You’ll look over,

And there’s a tear on her check,

Perhaps a mirage

A trick of the light,

Her skin,

Pale,

Reflecting the white of the screen.

She cries when my stepfather does.

He cries seldom,

Yet an earthquake

A disaster, rare as his anger

Shaking him in his grief

As he hunches,

And I press my ear against my hand,

Pressed against his back,

Pressed against my mother’s hand.

My stepmother,

On the other side,

Cries with distraction.

I've rarely seen it.

She’s teared up amongst arguments

Shoved it aside,

Feeling she must argue,

But helpless to stop.

She cries when overwhelmed,

When her brother-in-law’s-mother died

And she couldn’t be there

Because she had a three pound baby

And health

And exhaustion

She cried when she told me

That my now little brother,

Dead in the womb,

That his heart was found,

Alive.

My father’s mother cries with pride

When she sees growth

In someone, other than herself

Or when a barb finds its way home

Too close for comfort,

Just far enough to be foreign,

Not close enough for anger.

My mother’s mother cries when i do

Only a tear

Swept away by strong hands

That pinch flames and stems

And free mourning doves.

As walled in as her young:

The boy who doesn’t weep;

And the girl who weeps alone,

Or at movies.

I cry during changes.

Oft in the car,

I’ll scream alone,

Spiraling,

Jaw locked and lips turned down,

Cathartic and sobbing.

Or when my mother drives,

I turn my head,

Stare straight,

Fight the tears,

And hide.

Affected by her stoicism,

Yet leaning into her arm,

Sometimes,

When I feel soft inside.

I cry after a graduation,

A trip,

Or the end of a get-together,

Or not at all.

Not for months.

Not during the void

Or the ecstasy

Or the static.

I cry

When I feel

I’ve failed

Deep into my pillow

After punches

Into walls

Walls that keep a roof above me

The tears come hot

Disappointed

They come with the darkness

The breaths

Too fast to keep me running

Too slow to make the urge to flee

To drown

Tears come hot

With the change

And the cries of those before me