Blood Tears Poem by Melissa Joy Chesky

Crying
always starts
in your throat.

You try to gulp air,
to shove it down
like shots at
happy hour
to keep
control.
But it gets
stuck and burrows,
lodging it deeper to choke you.

It always
follows
to your nose.

Your nose starts to tingle,
annoying little twinge,
and your eyes start to
water,
but they don't overrun;
not yet.

And then you try
to make your
eyes sponge
the tears
back in
- flinging your head
back in defiance -
to suppress
all the pent-up
emotion that richochets
inside your gut.

And you can't help not
seeing anything...
blink.
Down goes on tear.
And it feels so cold,
feeling extra-terrestrial
on your skin.
But you can't help to
shed another.
Silently,
secretly,
your own sadistic
inside joke.

And with two
down,
why not all?
They slide down,
slowly,
always painstakingly slow.

The breath you hold
bursts out,
expels with an eruption.
Your body shakes with the
force the exhalation has used.
And you gasp for breath

And it hurts to breathe;
the tears flow more vigorously
than before.
Then you can't concentrate on
anything,
and your brain leaves you,
leaving you to convulse.

Your so clogged by this
point
you have to get
a tissue.

You glance at a passed
mirror:
especially your eyes.

Pure red.
Not an ounce
of white purity.

And the tears that
cling,
the stubborn ones that refuse
to plummet,
take on the quality of
dark red berries,
making it seem you have
enough stabbing,
painful emotion to cry
blood tears.