Tears Hitching Rides
by Odin Roark

Are we but tears hitching rides
In the ever-evaporating memories of past?
Do tears come as a result of pain?
Or does pain come as a result of tears
Retching themselves from the dark caches of denial?

Oh, to brush the back of one’s hand
Across the cheek of reflective honesty,
Remove the tears of sadness forever,
To see the glow of trenchant moisture
Glisten the eyes with joy,
To hear laughter begetting the peaceful arc of rainbows
Upon the bridge of solace and reform.

Perhaps expectations are forever doomed
To drown beneath the weeping of yesterday…

Or might there be something we are bent on turning away from?
The quantitative question dominates our existence, it seems.
But is there not another pattern to this reality?

Should we not grip the gravitas of honesty,
Where tears are but one’s transparent bliss finding freedom
For the revealing,
For the ‘to be,”
“To act,”
To finally “become?”

For is not life but an honorarium,
Temporary and qualitative,
Seeking an essence to better explain
Choices,
Regrets,
Inevitable changes,
Revealing the perpetual metronome of life?

So why…

From a precipice hanging,
Does the tear stare back at me,
From so many years of waiting?

Might this be the defining moment?

Can’t help wondering
When and how was I supposed to get it,
This euphoria of numbness made alive?

Some call it destiny’s
Make-as-you-go survival kit.

Still…

How I wish someone had told me
Of the gravitas of tears hitching rides, or...
Maybe I don’t.

I can’t deny
At this stage of life,
Consciousness seems to be doing its job
Anyway it wants to declare itself,
Tears and all.