this is how to cry

I have forgotten how.

My tears are honeyed and sewed into the pockets of my organs.

I never used to have much trouble getting it out. Commericals, rom coms, anytime anyone cried on the subway. Other people’s sadness has always been contagious for me. My eyes would flood like a summer rainstorm. Warm and hot against my cheeks. That time a teardrop squatted in my dimple for months.

In the bathtub. In the car. Against my lover’s chest. While walking my dog. While walking to the bus. While on the train. While running from myself.

Testosterone has saved my life, it seems. For the first time in my life I don’t want to die. I don’t want to hurt myself. When I catch my reflection in the mirror, I don’t say: who is that girl?

But it also quiets the salt in me and I want it out. It needs to come out. It’s not like there is nothing to be sad about anymore; it’s just that it’s no longer me trying to rip myself away from my breaths.

So I listen to music. The songs that used to gut me.

And I read the poems that feel like prescriptions for drugs without the shitty side-effects.

And I write.

And I fall in love.

And I keep trying to get it out.

This is how to cry, I guess.