They Don’t Just Fall

My tears don’t fall softly

they don’t glide like gentle rain,

they don’t shimmer down cheeks politely

as if sadness were something dainty.

No

they crash.

They slam into the silence

like waves breaking against cliffs,

loud enough to echo through bone,

sharp enough to carve valleys in me.

These tears have thunder in them,

storms I tried to swallow whole.

They carry every memory that clawed at my ribs,

every word I bit back until my tongue bruised,

every time I stayed quiet when I was burning.

When they fall

they collapse like a building in my chest,

dust and ruin,

timbers splintering under the weight of everything

I said I was “fine” through.

So no

my tears are not gentle.

They are not delicate.

They are not pretty.

They are the truth breaking loose,

the dam finally shattering,

the flood I can no longer hold back.

They don’t fall.

They crash.

And I crash with them

until the storm is spent

and the wreckage is real

and I can finally breathe again.