Reluctant Tears

In the city’s early light hush,
the heart walks behind tinted glass,
catching only glimmers,
a traffic light smearing its red
like a shy ember across the mind’s periphery.

Sirens bloom somewhere far off,
soft as watercolor warnings,
while neon advertisements flicker
like half‑spoken prophecies
the heart refuses to fully hear.

Still…

It watches quietly deciding what pain to filter,
what color to withhold.

By midday the streets churn,
and the heart steels itself against passing gusts of humanity,
subway brakes shrieking like nerves rubbed raw,
bus doors gasping open with the breath of startled giants.
It flinches at the metallic tang of overheard arguments,
the thunderclap laughter of strangers,
the scent of burnt espresso drifting like scorched memories.

Each sensation tries to seep in,
but the heart, dutiful sentinel,tucks itself deeper,
sandbagging emotion against the unexpected storm.

But dusk arrives with its sly gold edges,
and a single sound, barely anything,
perhaps a child’s dropped toy echoing on concrete,
strikes like a hairline crack across the fortress wall.
Just a filament of weakness,
a fissure thin as a whispered apology.

Yet…

It lengthens, widens, yawns, until the stronghold gives way,
and the heart’s long‑guarded waters rush forward in a torrent,
breaking open like a dam surrendering to its own weight,
spilling unrestrained its clear, innocent flood

of colorless long‑impeded tears.