The 'Man' Who Never Cried

The boy was hurt.
He wanted to cry.
But they told him
that boys never cry.
So, he held back his tears.

Years went by.
The boy was now an adult.
The pain revisited him
and he wanted to cry.
But they told him
that men never cry.
He held back his tears again.

As the years went by, he saw
people walk into and out of
his life but his only constant
companion had been his pain.
Although he never tried
escaping his rendezvous with
agony, he had repressed every tear
that was borne out of their trysts.
For he didn't need the world
to tell him that men never cry.
He did it himself.
The tears kept accumulating
all the while but they never
got past his eyes.
That made him feel
proud of himself.
I'm a man, he would gloat.

Years went by and he knew
he'd soon have to embrace
his eventuality.
Everyone he knew had long
gone away and unlike in the
past, he didn't have enough
reasons to keep going.
He tried to keep his tears at bay
but with each passing day, it was
getting overwhelming for him.
He was gradually losing the courage
to tell himself that men never cry.

And one day, he let the
tears well up in his eyes.
He didn't want them to roll down his
face but he wasn't in control anymore.
All the pent up emotions he had subdued,
all the pain he had suppressed,
all the turmoil he had hidden inside,
gushed out of his eyes and
flooded the core of his existence.
It was as if a storm had engulfed him
and the only thing that he could do
was wait for the storm to pass.
But the storm raged on for days.
He knew that the rain the storm had
brought was a lifetime of torment he
had cast aside in ignorance and so,
he decided to weather the storm.

After what seemed like ages,
the storm finally passed.
What followed was a calm.
A calm that had eluded
him throughout his life.
A calm that, he had no idea,
would be so comforting.
A calm that had cleansed
his soul of its naivety.
A calm that taught him
that he had  lived a lie.

And when that realization
dawned on him, he wiped the
tears off his face and smiled.
For he knew he was, indeed, a
man now because men do cry.
And this time, he wasn't lying.


© OkayCkay