The Art of Crying in Public: Exhibit A, Weekend Trip to Philadelphia
It begins on the plane ride, dark and quiet,
hurtling through the night, against time, across the continent
and I have finally decided to listen to this musical
that everyone has told me about but no one told me
it was quite this sad but even then I should not be
quite this sad — violently shaking and silently sobbing
in the empty row of seats, forehead pressed against
the cold window. The last note sustains, ends,
and I am still crying — bereft, we are bereft, my family
is bereft and I still can’t think about guns
without feeling nauseous.
I walk through a garden of broken glass and tile
and I can hardly breathe through the metaphors
in my mouth about kintsugi, the art of creating
something beautiful and new from the shattering.
I see myself in shards of mirror, refracted fractals of
myself and I can’t stop staring at her staring at me.
I sit on a park bench and weep fat, cold tears
because everything is far too heavy to bear,
much less process. And so I cry and I wail
my frustration and my pain into the air as
children bicycle past me laughing at each other
and college students practice their acrobatics
with a yellow hula hoop and couples in puffy coats amble
with bare hands entwined and freezing in the February
breeze and art students take professional photographs
with those big soft lights — and no one is looking at me
as anything more than just another broken tile in this mosaic,
and there is so much peace in that.
