A teardrop trembles at the precipice of a lower eyelid. It concentrates the day’s sorrows, refracts them, and at last escapes, a single jewel sliding down the skin. But what then, as it falls, does the teardrop itself feel? Is it possible that the crystalline body, which is nothing but condensed sadness, might harbour its ache? Could a teardrop, in the instant of its own long descent, experience so much compassion for the eye that birthed it, the face it wets, or the cheek it traverses, that it too must weep? Would it wish, if it could, to stop its journey, to cling to the warmth above, or to multiply itself in solidarity? Or must it follow the inevitable pull of gravity and land in some forgotten place, where it is absorbed, evaporated, or simply lost? Can the teardrop itself become the mother of further tears? Does it carry within it the memory of all the others that came before, and the sorrow of knowing that more will surely come after? Thus, the question lingers: can a teardrop cry? Tears are not born equal. Some descend with shuddering violence, splattering on wood or cloth with enough force to rouse the attention of those nearby, some slip unnoticed into the world, leaving only a faint, salty mark of previous sorrows. Each tear carries an inheritance, traces of memory, shadows of desire, patterns of grief. Inside some tears, if seen under the right light or with empathy, entire histories can be glimpsed: the arguments at midnight, the whispered apologies deafened by the silence of too late, the irreducible ache for what could not and never would. To some, tears are just water, to the historian of sadness, they are archives of feelings…

© KD.W.Heim