Peacefulness. It is hanging in the curve of dawn. Quite tired of picking up the throne. When the moon manifest my tears always pool. These two palms inundate the tears that drip from the banks of my eyes’ river. It spills over, flooding the wobbly floor I step on. I try to fight fearfully with a smile on anyone who looks at me with pity. But the smile that I force backfires into the corner of my wound. Feeling the sting embedded in the hole of each injury each of these lips want to give an explanation. The arrangement of the letters I have collapses and splays on the expanse of ambiguous sentences. The language of my speech lost its structure so I could not explain why my tears could not bear the power.
“I’m a losing man.” The particles and the compounds of that defeat spread freely in my bloodstream. Limp. Resigned to be rolled in rotting tears. The smell of piercing pores that clogged up the vacuum. Silence pierces the elastic eardrums flowing through the labyrinth. Not a sliver of that silence I can catch for my defeat does not overwhelm. Disgusted. Mucus leaves a maggot dancing. Nausea.
At dawn I was greeted with an ache in my abdomen. The gentle sun burns the words of determination that I try to build. But every self wants to rise to the sun. The ropes are snatched off the nose. I am losing to the sorry kitten I took care of. The fire to tumble was also mocking with his tiny tongues.
“You’re not just a loser of a man! But rather a hollow man! ”
I can only surrender to the loss. Speaking in a sore pit. Glorifying prayers collecting the miraculous grains of sadness decomposers. Hope that I want to hug is dismissed with grieving fingers. I can only hug my chagrin with a hope that slumped. I am a losing and empty man, a loss that has been pounding. Thrown so far away I cannot cradle again. My sadness continues to swing on the apex of tears. Swinging brokenly to sprinkle down the lashes which are no longer flickering. My eyelashes were once thought to be the most beautiful eyelashes for a man’s size. Many women forgot to blink their eyes when they look at my eyelashes. That was before I became a losing and empty man.
My tabir night is a pitiful party. The fireworks of my heart splash and burn the candles of my passion. From all directions I received a prickling message. Hit the wind direction to my body. Tear off my half-broken manly wings front. Drooping unable to reach the crescent poignant moon. Inserting a scalp that sloped into my heart. Every second I spent with sobs. Enjoying the pervasive nose. A tear falling deepened the side of my laceration. The compounding sadness I feel reacts with high agility spilling tears on the sad bowl.
“You are such a crybaby! A man must be strong!”
That is a sentence I always hear. Cry baby? I do not know, what I do know is that I am not able to dam the river of my tears to not flow anymore. I inhale by the stench of my tears. How should I repay my damaged time? While my joints are thickening. The time ahead of me may have drowned already? Swimming in the mud that I own myself? I still have a night to prostrate, crying tears that are genuine.
“God, what is the meaning of these tears? I know and have always stayed faithful, all of this is because of Your best scenario for me. Even the falling leaf from that tree is due to Your will, let alone the teardrops of Your faithful upon this Earth of Yours,” I sang quietly to the silent night.
“What is your problem? Every single day all you do is just cry!”
Questions coming from the people around me. I have been trying to sew this lesion but that embarrassing event still haunts me inside. Embarrassing? Yes, very humiliating.
“How are you going to heal if we do not even know the cause of it?”
Doctors, psychiatrists, and “smart people” who try to fix me always ask. All the tips of all their fingers have touched my bags of tears.
“This is the first time we have found eye tears that flows without a stop. It is very hard to define what sort of illness this is.”
I am embarrassed with honesty. Too shy imagining everything that has happened which dulled my manliness. That is how I am, ever since that affair I can only slice the silence. Ribboning the pain inside a thousand vengeance. That immeasurable ribbon sings such a long silence.
In the limpness of my eyes, I try to laugh, tasting the pain. The chirping of the birds hiding in the trees sings a song that begs the sadness amongst my depression. The hurting song that scratches my daily violin. The sound of tears dropping became a sorrowful piano rhythm. Very sad.
“You have to heal, my child.”
Mother reassures me with all of her heart. Her fingers touch rubbles of ruined words. Yet they were not strong enough for me to speak of a reason.
“Speak with words, my child. Even if your tears has explained enough of your sadness. But I need words so I can capture the meaning and explanation.”
Though the horizon of myself gets paler. The dusk light rain comes to accelerate the night. The sadness continues to coagulate making my masculinity sinking and sinking.
“What is actually happening to you?”
The little girl I once have tried to get close to asked with all of her heart. Yet after that occurrence my heart’s song is always so shattered. My dawn was bladed with scars. My day stares with a limp. My night mumbles quietly. This tongue has always hoped for something sweet, yet what is being chewed is an extremely bitter heart. It is as if when I walk I can feel my sadness seeping onto the ceramics. The little girl who has made me feel flattered became a man. The little girl who has spread the scent of jasmine flowers inside of my body’s aroma.
When I want to calm myself on the beach, actually giving existence to boiling scars. Its sandy grains stabs my doubtful stomach. The mangrove forest greeting only becomes a worrying thorny bush in my eyes. Its strong roots sprouts as if it stabs through my two lungs which was tied at the strings. Fish net switches into a slashed aperture that always holds the sadness of the heart I always grip. I extend the remains of my manliness on the poles of the nets. Sending to sleep the tiredness of dropping so many tears until the container bred moss.
“I am not able to give an answer,” I say to the little girl who tries to offer her basin of teardrops.
“Are you not tired producing so much tear drops? Cease your sadness! Do you not want to share your tears with me? Your tears I will turn into cool dewdrops that soothe the lips of our hearts,” the little girl persuades.
“I do not know… I had no idea. That incident forced me to shower my tears onto my injury. Forget about me, child. My future has slipped into the spores of time. Dark and colorless,” I say.
I am very much aware that the pools of my tears leave remains of the worries of the people surrounding me. Even I myself deeply understand that my pool of tears has ruined the ages of men. The world that should have surrounded with toughness has shattered into thousands with one touch. Even the ski follows suit in letting their tears fall tearing open pity at every flavor. Sweet became sour, salty changed into tasteless, even the rainbow has paled, and the sunshine is tired of warming up. Pity stares at the concave of these tired eyes.
The river then eroded. That man came. Reminding me of that incident. The man who has spread such terrible smell full of grief. It was painful. When that man took my manliness. Bastard! Yes, my masculinity. All gone, sucked along with the disgusting and lustful smell. At dusk in that small square house taking note of my rage. The goodness planted inside of me in reality contains a stinky desire of the devil’s. The inheritance of Sodom tribe tear apart at once all of the faithful defense I have build.
I have to rise! The puzzle pieces of my bravery seem to sort itself forming my manliness. I collect the vases of tears of which I have long since drowned on. I approach that bastard man. I shatter his head with the vases of my tears.
Got you!!!
Bambang Kariyawan Ys., a teacher. WA: 08117595971