When she left I cried and cried and cried and cried.
I cried upon waking; I cried at night. I cried til the blood vessels below my eyes popped.
When we patched (most) things up, I cried less. There was no sense in crying over her leaving. I cried probably to forget about thinking about how she is totally gone. I wished she hadn't left while crying.

Yes, time passed. I have had regrets, but they brought no tears. It has been years since she left, so why should I cry about it? I couldn't even bring myself to do it. Time did something to me. It hardened me. I cried about some other things, about another girl, about friendship. But not about love. Not specifically about love. I couldn't. It just didn't flow. Something just happened over the years. Upon falling into an abyss, I just sat there in my mind. I didn't ask for the cathartic rescue of crying; I just sat there, like a lump, not caring about the darkness, not really, immediately wanting help. Crying was rather useless and infantile. When you cry enough times after leaving home and living alone, I suppose your mind realizes that there's nothing and nobody around here to help you. So you stop crying altogether. There is no use for Crying any longer. Say hello to his older brother and your new roommate, Desolation.

So now I lie here feeling utterly alone, utterly unloved by all the key people, and knowing that I will not be able to sleep until something happens. I turn and turn and feel my mind being shredded by something in my gut. The feeling is irreconcilable. Not even my saviour Crying can help me here. I see the vast insides of my brain being scorched by brilliant falling thoughts, which die out at the horizon. The futility of it all. (Yes, it would be wonderful if a girl, any girl, all girls, could come and comfort me at this very point. I only need love. (That's it!) How can anybody be cynical and say you really need sex; it is nothing, and it will always be that. Love is the only, only thing that ever matters down here.) It is a horrible feeling to know that all one's loneliness and dejection and failure cannot be blamed on anyone else. It is even worse to know that one hasn't the tools to climb out of the hole. All one can do is dig. (I can close my eyes and just imagine -- open them and find myself reaching out for the body of someone to love me -- (No, nobody here at all. Look around; take it all in, Chris. I can close my eyes again, remembering that I am lying in bed, (my feet 6 inches from the foot of my bed, my head resting on a pillow right up against the wall, my bed 10 inches from the window, and on my other side -- open space.) With one's eyes closed the proportions of proximity lose any meaning. (The open space is actually all around me. (My head rests against a boundless pillow, my feet meet nothing but more chasms further below, no windows near me at all, and the space on the other side of me keeps growing (and growing (and growing (and growing! (There is nobody real this far down. Love doesn't reach these parts of the psyche. Only the demons, tearing away at synapses.) There is unfortunately) no time to breathe) when one is digging.

Meanwhile the wounds left exposed keep glowing all around me while I dig.

And finally, when I am just about ready to burst, lying here in my bed 100 miles down and in the middle of nowhere, my frantic digging going along nicely, (but stupid me, I made the hole too narrow to pile dirt anywhere but on top of myself) I break through the layer and crack the shell and hit the pulp of my buried memories of crying. It is bright and amber like a creme-filled egg, and I can cry again.

So I do; I just let it all go and get ready for the torrent, and yes it comes, all painful, all wrought, all wet. I can finally stop twirling in my bed and just let reflexes take over. It takes no deep thought to keep crying; you just have to keep fuelling the mechanism with pain and, almost as if automatically, the sobs come out, and the tears pour out, and the jaw locks open and your mouth is held in a silent, desperate, climactic scream. Ahh, but to start crying... You can see from the bare fact that I'm already on the second page how hard it is to start. And, now that I'm nearly finished, I can see that I did it all wrong anyway. My body went through all the motions; I am once again spent from crying; but, I feel no better. Crying has helped me to get back to sanity, to collect my thoughts, or at the very least, to pass the time; but no answers have been given to me. Part of growing up is the realization that all your torture and all your pleasure are all self-inflicted. I can't get the answers without going through pains. I can't feel pleasure without first battling the demons of discouragement who bludgeon me atop the head all the while depleting my precious supply of self-esteem. It is a horrible and neverending circle which I have traced for myself. So, I'm back to the same plea that started me digging in the first place: "Somebody please help."

--February 1999