just so you know:
these dusty tear ducts
are for the purpose
of the removal of
foreign objects
from the
eyes

because
we don’t know
we don’t care
we are not you

don’t cry dear
you’ll soil that pretty face
ruin this pretty party
besides tears are
a waste of time
of energy
of life

and you’ll
move on
eventually

---

like cellophane
and window panes
and quiet rain
we are here
we try

we try

---

and god oh god i’ll cry
though i believe not in
deities or supreme beings
because nothing else is as raw
and instinctual and oh god oh god

and this is ridiculous
because i try to understand
and when i think i do
i’m carried away by a riptide
of stupid emotion and of red
and you’re wrong and i’m right
and i’m wrong and you’re right
and we’re all wrong
and yet somehow we’re all right

yet somehow we’re alright
---

maybe in ten, twenty years
i’ll have a family of my own
a daughter who thinks
she knows everything
when she has gone
through nothing
nothing at all

and we’ll argue
because she wants
down to her core
and what exactly
she knows not

she’ll sway young
and defiant and
red-eyed because
she just doesn’t
understand and
it’s her time now

and i
i’ll remember
a time when i was young
and defiant and red-eyed

and i’ll be sorry

---

i’m sorry

---

when you peel away the skin
and the bone and the eyes
and the heart
what’s left?

and honesty
is a double-bladed sword
whose victims don’t heal so easily
because you can’t take back
the truth

but i’ll try

i’ll try