Maybe you know.
Tears fall differently on a kitchen floor.
They fall differently from five feet two inches up
From one foot ten inches up
From one to three inches up
Curled around yourself against cold tile
Feeling shag rug bunching against your feet
Trying not to feel anything else
Maybe you know.
Tears fall differently on a shower floor.
From five feet two inches up
From one foot ten inches up
From one to three inches up
Heavy drops of water colder than you set them
From falling the extra distance
Landing indifferently loudly rudely
Washing nothing.
Maybe you know.
Grief is waterproof.
Tears fall differently from the back of a closet
Shoes uncomfortably pressed under the back of your knees
Tails of clothes draping on your head
The comfort of the uncomfortable
The closeness of the space reassuring in its
Awkwardness.
Maybe you know.
Maybe you know.
Tears fall differently on the surface of
bathwater
On the surface of whisky
On the surface of your steering wheel
Trying to see through them so you
Don’t die of this grief
So you don’t kill someone else with it.
Maybe you’ve cried these tears.
Maybe you know.
Tears fall differently in silence
Reluctant sobs escaping breathlessly
Shaking out In lurches.
Tears fall differently in noisome surrender
Wailing bellowed from the pit of grief
Threatening to to deafen even yourself
Trying to be louder than the pain.
You aren’t alone if it has its own word.
Keening.
Maybe you’ve done it.
Maybe you know.
Maybe you know what heartbreak is.
Maybe you could tell me.
Maybe you could help me find another way
To let it go.
This sorrow is so full.
Overflowing.
A reservoir after four decades of storms
And no way to let it go
Except these two little valves
That move so slow.
Tears fall differently on a kitchen floor.
Maybe you know.
