To the Girl Who Never Cries
People look at you and see something that needs to be fixed.
You are a broken radio, never in tune with the emotional wavelengths of others. You swing like a pendulum between two states of being - incomprehensible static and awkward silence.
Some nights, you think of dismantling your own heart under the moonlight. You want to find out what is broken just so that you might have an answer to questions that are left unspoken.
“Don’t you feel anything?”
“Why are you like this?”
“Do you even have a heart?”
Sometimes you just want to fit in. You are sick of standing at the sidelines, watching other people cry. You imagine their hearts full of emotion, spilling out into the world and making a statement, “Look at us, we are human”. To have the courage to be vulnerable and to be able to find comfort in other people who share your feelings. If their tears don’t drown you, you think your jealousy might.
Once or twice, you try to fake it. You pinch yourself hard enough to bruise. You think of sad movies and songs. You dig up memories that maybe sting a little bit. None of them work and you are glad. You cannot bear the burden of guilt if you were to succeed in faking it.
The logical part of your brain knows that there’s nothing wrong with being unable to cry in front of other people. But you crave reassurance from someone. You ask Google if there’s something wrong with you. Strangers on the web says of course not. Turns out there are other people like you. This knowledge does not help you sleep better. Instead, you lie awake at night thinking about hearts that beat out of sync.
They call you the girl who never cries.
But I know you better.
I was there when you wept silently on that blue plastic chair at the airport and mourned for all the memories that would never come to be.
I saw you blink rapidly to push back the tears that day on the train when you were feeling down and you got a text that asked how you were doing.
I know you typed back, “Everything is fine” with a smiley face added for good measure.
I watched you as you broke down in the middle of a room, surrounded by boxes filled with color papers and empty cans of paint.
I saw you for the scared little girl that you were as your mask slipped away and the walls you built came crumbling down.
To the girl who does not cry,
I want you to know that it is okay to cry.
You should know better by now that there’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable.
After all, those who have seen your heart break were the ones who helped you put it back together.
To the girl who does not cry,
I want you to know that it is also okay not to cry.
You should know better by now that there’s nothing wrong with being who you are.
After all, you have always been awkward when it comes to sharing your emotions with others.
You are a broken radio, never in tune with the emotional wavelengths of others. You swing like a pendulum between two states of being - incomprehensible static and awkward silence.
Some nights, you think of dismantling your own heart under the moonlight. You want to find out what is broken just so that you might have an answer to questions that are left unspoken.
“Don’t you feel anything?”
“Why are you like this?”
“Do you even have a heart?”
Sometimes you just want to fit in. You are sick of standing at the sidelines, watching other people cry. You imagine their hearts full of emotion, spilling out into the world and making a statement, “Look at us, we are human”. To have the courage to be vulnerable and to be able to find comfort in other people who share your feelings. If their tears don’t drown you, you think your jealousy might.
Once or twice, you try to fake it. You pinch yourself hard enough to bruise. You think of sad movies and songs. You dig up memories that maybe sting a little bit. None of them work and you are glad. You cannot bear the burden of guilt if you were to succeed in faking it.
The logical part of your brain knows that there’s nothing wrong with being unable to cry in front of other people. But you crave reassurance from someone. You ask Google if there’s something wrong with you. Strangers on the web says of course not. Turns out there are other people like you. This knowledge does not help you sleep better. Instead, you lie awake at night thinking about hearts that beat out of sync.
They call you the girl who never cries.
But I know you better.
I was there when you wept silently on that blue plastic chair at the airport and mourned for all the memories that would never come to be.
I saw you blink rapidly to push back the tears that day on the train when you were feeling down and you got a text that asked how you were doing.
I know you typed back, “Everything is fine” with a smiley face added for good measure.
I watched you as you broke down in the middle of a room, surrounded by boxes filled with color papers and empty cans of paint.
I saw you for the scared little girl that you were as your mask slipped away and the walls you built came crumbling down.
To the girl who does not cry,
I want you to know that it is okay to cry.
You should know better by now that there’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable.
After all, those who have seen your heart break were the ones who helped you put it back together.
To the girl who does not cry,
I want you to know that it is also okay not to cry.
You should know better by now that there’s nothing wrong with being who you are.
After all, you have always been awkward when it comes to sharing your emotions with others.
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