Have you ever seen me

cry? Not just a tear, a stab of relief

of physical pain mind you,

but a river, a rolling spiky ocean,

a steady flow of information

making its way down my face.

 

Have you seen me cry in frustration,

over a film, a whole class once did

in senior school as Boxer

the Horse was sent down

in place of the people; I wailed then.

 

Did you see me shed a silent,

inexplicable tear over the death

of someone I didn’t know,

the catching unawares of a sick old man

dying heroically, a woman from neglect,

did you see me cry through despair, misery,

the cruelty, because of guilt, tiredness, wretched

over wrought, the aching of existence,

because I missed you, because I pined away

over a girl at school and my music mood

made me write I love you a thousand times

to school girl crush as my fifteen year self

could not handle the utterances of goodbye

through lips painted with lipstick.

 

Did you see me cry though happiness,

the feeling in my mind of the uncontrollable,

of the moment when I nearly lost an eye

on the back of another school’s

playing field, when, perhaps the only time

I was brave when my appendix burst

and I asked my mother

if I was going to die,

when Man City lost, got relegated,

when Man City won, Champions, Champions,

through the pain of causing pain to someone else,

when David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Greg Lake died,

through love, pride, satisfaction,

shame,

did you ever see me cry?

 

Ian D. Hall 2018