Tears

My tears don’t fall 

They open

A wound splitting wider

Each time the heart remembers

What it tried to forget

They’re not soft

They hit like impact

Like the echo of a gunshot

Still ringing in the ribs

A shockwave that never learned

How to fade

Some tears cut

A thin bright line

Like a blade drawn across

The quiet parts of me

The parts I pretend

Aren’t tender

And some tears

Are the slow bleeding ones 

The kind you press your hand over

Knowing it won’t stop

Knowing the body leaks

What the soul can’t hold

These tears don’t close

They pulse

They throb

They remind me

That healing is not a door

I can simply shut

But still

I let my tears open

I mean fall

Because even a wound

That won’t seal

Is proof I’m still alive enough

To feel the breaking