Through the years he was unable to let go

         of anything

 The good that happened 

  the good times

 Those memories stayed with him


But so too did the bad times

  The tears he’d shed, they would eventually dry


yet, inside they stayed with him


Even as a young boy 

  he could sense 

    the waters had already reached mid-calf


inside of him


By the time he’d passed through the mean and awkward teens

  his voice had deepened

     as the volume of tears was now in his chest


As each year passed, the dark waters rose

   until the level sat now 

     just below his lower eye lids


When he’d lie down at night, in the silence

  he would relive each time he’d been dismissed, judged, abused


The tears would flow over onto his pillow


Bow to pray, for understanding

  for forgiveness, for love


they would spill over


Careless movements

  the touch of a hand or an embrace

    could cause tears


to splash across his cheek


It was around this time 

  in this tenuous state

    always on the verge 

       of tears 


when he met someone


a person who was charming and beautiful and confident

  whose movements were erratic, angular

     someone who had no concern about the spilling of tears


someone whose eyes were bright fires, whose head was ablaze 

  This one too had been unable to let go of the transgressions 

      Instead of sadness and tears, it was the pain, the anger that had built up 


through the years


This fuel was never scarce, and it stoked a flame 

   which was beautiful 

       and terrible 


inside 


He found himself drawn to this lit match

   Perhaps this one could teach him how to let go of the sadness

      how to live, to embrace without tears


The closer they became, however, the clearer it was to him

  The anger was no improvement upon the sorrow

    It was no solution to the sadness

       no antidote for the oppression 


I am drowning, he thought, but this match was being consumed as well


Yet, they became inseparable, each seeing in the other that which each was lacking               

but their love, the water and the flame, seemed forbidden by Nature itself


Then it’s to hell for us, and to hell with the parents and the siblings and the priests the politicians and the coaches the teachers and the police and the philosophers and the doctors and the journalists and those who had questioned and judged them


Tonight they would lie in each other’s arms 

  until these tears extinguish those flames

    until this fire burns off the drowning flood