Go ahead and cry

I sit by the river and cry.

The sun comes and goes,

making me blink my tears down in black streaks.

Why even try to make up my eyes,

when my grief will wash it away and make a mess of my face?

I don't care about that right now anyways.

The river keeps going by.

The wind dries my eyes.

I try to empty my mind and and just feel,

without the words and thoughts that turn grief into despair.

"Go ahead and cry," Margaret told me, the last time we talked,

when I knew it was goodbye.

Go ahead and cry, I tell myself now, reeling from real horrors in our classrooms and everywhere, always, a never-ending waking nightmare.

The river keeps going by.

I hear the Cardinals calling through the trees.

A hydrangea blooms by the water, its snow light petals flying into the river for a ride.

It's beautiful. It's healing. It's not enough, on this day, to help me find joy.

But it will keep me from despair, for a while,

while I sit by the river and cry.