There's a Bald Thing Crying At Your Back

Every Sunday like clockwork Pop calls me. This is worrisome for a number of reasons. Figure it out. Someday I hope to deliver good news and I pray he can hear happiness in my voice as opposed to assuming what we know of the present. I don't know why I've always been so loyal to both parents. It's weird. What if they were Mormons? I would be as loyal to all of that, too? This winter when I was visiting Pop, I had a surprising, unfortunate conversation on Christmas morning the ramifications of which I couldn't hide for shit on my face when I re-entered the living room after putting the phone down and attempting to compose myself, waterproof mascara and all. I hadn't cried in front of Pop for personal reasons for I don't know how long. Over 10 years. We never saw each other enough for him to get a dose of this. I cried in airports, and that was about what he saw. It was weird for me to do so on this Christmas, at 27 years of age, but I could not contain myself so I stood there in the living room - my body vapid - watching my father make a fire (in a fireplace!) from kindling for the first time in my life. I had no idea he could build a fire ....I realized how many tantrums/tears my mother has seen or heard from me, and how much had been hidden (passive voice) from Pop. On Christmas morning, I repaid his fire with water. I gave him this little dose of me, this little present of real; messily wrapped in big tear drops like pearls that soaked my face and exposed me for the gullible, hopeful fool that I am...There is something so unsatisfying about crying in the shower; I will never do it again. It's like you catch yourself in the act of crying because your tears begin to be washed away by the water, and you realize you have never experienced crying without the sensation of THAT specific water on your face ...what are tears if not contra to dry skin or gulps of air being drowned in your own throat? What am I, if not how you see me? This, and every other dichotomy. And so, you just let the water run down your face, the expression of crying ceases...it's either going to be tears or shower water, and at this point you feel like a clown, because the water running down your face could really: create a clichéd river-o-tears...and then you remember there are some places in the world that don't have running water and then you figure that means that there are some places where shit is SO FUCKING BAD the people there are not even at a luxury to wash their hands, let alone their hair, or waste their own goddamn tear drops...especially while doing something so divine as showering. Then you stand facing the water, and let it pummel your face...the fake penitence for being so goddamn naive...and this time, eyes closed, you are trying to keep the water out.

(foto por laura paull - who never gets any credit)