The incomplete teardrop rippled over his pupil as he fought back the overflow of emotion setting to fall at any given time. A newly formed gloss of his eyes were a build up of years of emotion stored in a place in his mind that he was not aware of. He was taught a man does not cry; misled through years of abuse and repetition that eventually built up a tolerance for the indescribable acts witnessed by the same pupils. His eyes had never made it to the point to that were now reaching. Since childhood, his eyes had not been to the point of uncontrollable watering that they were now at the point of reaching. For some reason he felt the need to let them flow like a fountain but his subliminal mind still fought it, going against every grain in his tear ducts. He couldn't make himself cry if he wanted to.
The last real cry he recalled having was when he was just 12 years old. He fell off of his bicycle and knew instantly that he was suppose to feel the pain to match his wrist, which was facing a direction he never could make it face on purpose. The first glimpse of it made him instantly know that he was to feel pain, but his tear ducts had longed dried up and were a force to be dealt with, in themselves. He went straight to his house fighting tears but his father instantly spat out words he dreaded most and knew were to come, 'A real man doesn't cry, does he?' He forced he head to disagree with his logic as he slowly shook it left to right and went to his parents bedroom where his mother was lying down. Within the first glance he knew that she felt his pain but remained silent for fear for of the words that were sure to follow. In silence they alone drove to the hospital, where he sobbed and told of the injury in agonizing detail. Thus, the last time this man remembered letting any moisture out of his eyelids. He was now a rock.
This same rock had built up a tolerance of pain. A tolerance of pain that led to the lack of empathy of any living creature, even himself. He has long ago put to the front of his mind that he was able to fight through any challenge alone. He father mentally trained him and his body took only a few years to catch up.
He had cause the tears of many women throughout his life, that stuck as a reminder that only a woman should cry. Whenever the thought of a thought of crying ran through his controlled brain, it was clouded by the reality that he only saw females with tears leaving their eyelids. So what his father told him must not be just a made up fairy tale but the true tale of men who didn't want to be considered fairies.
Hurt was never an option. Pain was only a choice. Emotion were for those who couldn't find a manly thing to say or to answer with. He knew that he was right in his mind and his heart was muted by the yells of his father's voice.
At the age of forty years old, he was now a man's man. He watched in disbelief as people within his family cried at his grandmother's funeral. He failed to see the truth in his cousins and uncles eyes as he could only comprehend the saltine tears that rolled down their faces. He never had a cigarette to his lips once but the cancer of denial was undeniable when the fire of hurt began inside of him, only to be quelled by a extinguisher of stubbornness. He refused to let out a tear for a woman he cherished and loved since he could remember. 'That's not what a man does, is it?' The words rumbled trembled inside of him, even when only saying them inside of his head.
So why, after many successful years of strength and tolerance, was this same man suddenly feeling the same needs that he had been denying himself for the past few decades? He still didn't know the answer to the question, but asked it of himself over and over rhetorically.
Maybe it was because he truly was sorry for the daughter that he verbally abused through her adolescent years. He hugged her and told her he loved her, but his words always left more of a marker of her heart than his actions ever could; Maybe it was the way he spoke to his ex-wife. They way he refused to hold or curve anything that came to his mind, before sleazing its way to the tip of his tongue. Wasn't he just doing what a man was expected to do, be strong? Maybe he was sorry for the route that he chose to take when speaking to people he used to call friends. If they were his true friends then they would understand the interpretation of his words, right? They wouldn't expect him to be modest or considerate when speaking to them, right? Nah, he didn't chose any punk friends so that couldn't of been it...
He was told and taught that a man does not cry or show emotion and not his emotion is nearly choking his to death. Could it be possible that the toughness he has displayed through his life, was really a mask hiding the hurt and despair that he desperately needed to squeeze through the tough and confined gaps in his heart?
Nah, couldn't be. He was a forty year old man sitting alone at home with no friends or family, with watery eyes simply because he had allergies. Yea, that's it. Allergies.
It could't be because a real man can truly express himself and not bottle his emotions, that everyone feels, inside... Or could it?
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