Sometimes

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Sometimes

Sometimes I feel like I can’t cry. I can feel the hot tears prickling the back of my eyes itching to fall, but like a waterfall in a desert, nothing comes.

Sometimes I watch sad films or read sad books to try to force myself to cry, to feel the release of emotion, and to be unburdened by the pressure collecting at the edge of my eyes and coating my eyelashes. But once again, nothing.

Sometimes I sit in the warm spray of the shower just to feel what it would be like to finally cry, to feel the sensations of the hot tears rolling down my face and falling off my chin.

Sometimes I do cry, but it’s not the release I crave, it’s a panicked, anxiety-stricken cry that only adds to the pressure in my heart.

When I do finally cry you offer no words of comfort, you do not calm my frantic breathing, you do not coax my trembling body, instead you shout and scream and tell me it’s my fault, that I shouldn’t be crying, that I’m a disappointment, and that I haven’t tried hard enough.

So, I stop. I push down my anxiety and my sadness until the next time it built up too much and I can no longer take it. So instead I sit there bathing in my own self-pity wondering why you ask me “why are you crying?” Rather than “why aren’t you?”