“Baby.”
Watch with your eyes,
with your vacant mouth,
as I stand on the mountain
and proclaim the truth.
“Here I am,” I say,
“And you must know that
it’s okay for the river
to overflow, for the walls
to erode and fall with it.
You’re not weak if you
can not hold it in,
rather you have power
to admit you cannot
do it alone.”
Your body begins to
illuminate, and your
blank face becomes
fully functional,
with infinite detail.
You don’t know why,
but you sink into the ground,
and your knees break
in the crushing pressure.
-------------------------------------
This is the most recent poem I have wrote, and it's quite a doozy in many ways. As I said before, whatever the poem means to you when you read it is what it means, but this is my interpretation of my poem.
Here's a little background: I've recently moved out on my own for college, and it's been really exciting and fun, but also terrifying. Therefore, I find myself crying at random times because I'm afraid.
Most boys are taught from a young age that crying shows weakness, that it's feminine, that "real men don't cry" and other variations of this. Therefore, many of them grow up with this mentality and then wonder why they can't process emotion properly when they are fully grown men. I myself was caught in that trap as well, to the point to where I can almost always stop myself from crying at any time; my body's natural reaction when I feel myself crying is still STOP, STOP, STOP, NO!
Starting a few weeks ago, I've let myself cry whenever I was alone when I was feeling it come, and now I'm much happier and don't feel "trapped."
I wrote this poem to tell everyone, even girls who may have been taught that crying shows too much weakness, that it's OK! It's a natural human process, and there shouldn't be any shame in it.
"You" in the poem refers to someone who thinking traditionally about showing emotion, which is why "you" is plain. Then when "I" tells "the truth," they become more than just two-dimensional and sink down because they develop emotion themselves.
To whoever is reading this: You are entitled to how you feel. You don't have to cover it up. Let the walls break down, let yourself be vulnerable. Please don't feel like you have to be strong all the time, because you don't.
