Tears

A face is the portrait of a person to the world. It is the window to a person's soul and emotions; the first point of reference with a stranger and the only part of the body where one can express his or her feelings effectively.

It gives another person comfort or creeps, love or anger, happiness or sadness.

I've been known to contort my face whenever I reach an orgasm. I squint really heavily on one eye as though I am in pain. In fact, when I'm feeling high I automatically spring into squint-mode; some people get really afraid because they wonder whether I'm actually enjoying myself or feeing pain. But that's just me. I'm a squint-squint-shoot type of person.

And I do it oh so naturally. I'm very good with my facial expressions. I can contort my eyebrows in any direction that I wish. I am also blessed with the ability to contort my lips to suggest sulking or happiness very effectively.

I can mimic people if I want to and I certainly know how to "put on a face"

But I cannot fake tears. I cannot force myself to cry, or to feel sad up to the point where tears start flowing.

Whenever I cry it would be for genuine feelings inside me; usually something has to be really tragic to incite such feelings.

When I cry, I really do mean it.

As a boy I used to be slapped in the face whenever I cried. Boys didn't cry, that's what my father said. Then again he also said that men were designed by nature to fuck other women but he has a boyfriend and lives his happy gay life very openly right now. But anyway, back to the slapping; I used to get really angry at my father for giving my cheeks some attention with his hot palms. I knew that it was perfectly NORMAL for a person to cry whenever he or she was sad, and there was nothing to be ashamed of.

But I was brought up in a family that scorned crying. It was absurd to think this but I had to cry in silence whenever I did because if I made any noise I'll know the punishment that awaited me. I came up with nifty ways to overcome this; crying in the shower, walking to the backyard and curling in a corner to cry, turning on rock music to drown out the crying, crying under my bed (albeit being the least effective of them all)... the schemes I used to develop to allow me to express my sadness were odd but they certainly did what they were intended to do.

As a young adult I find that crying occurs very rarely. Even when I'm extremely mortified or upset, I cannot shed tears. I cannot cry if someone in my family dies (clearly that was the case when I attended my grandfather's funeral), I cannot cry if I fall down and bleed my sorry ass off on the pavement, I cannot cry when someone hurts me physically (ok maybe that has something to do with me and my fetish, but anyway...), I cannot cry when I am lonely or desperately in need of some form of support.

Funny how I found myself crying today. And again, instantly, I jumped into kid-mode; I did it in the most concealed manner possible. No sounds, no public displays of emotions. "Silent Weeping", I'd call it. Cry but not make a sound.

I just hid in a corner and did all the crying I needed to do.

I cannot say for certain what would incite such feelings but they must have been great because I did spend a long time in that corner. It could have been anything; one of my many problems, my trials and tribulations, the difficulties that I faced, the people who have hurt me emotionally, and those whom I loved so dearly but couldn't express my feelings to because they were after another person other than me. Any of the above, or it may be something else I've never really thought about.

But the tears flowed like they never have and I myself was surprised at my capacity to let it out. I've never cried in a long time.

I walked away from the spot as though nothing ever happened, just like Bree van der Kamp would have done. I put on a smile and instantly noticed how good I felt, how relieved, how renewed.

The autumn flowers I saw on my way home were especially beautiful today. I wonder if it had anything to do with the crying.