Prompt:

Describe the feeling of crying and all the different modes of crying to someone who has never cried before. What is the purpose of crying? Tears of joy, sorrow, and everything in between. What is that like? Try to avoid using abstract adjectives like “emotional” or “painful.” Fully key into the experience of crying—as a physical, psychological, and ritual experience.

Anonymous

gift

heat and headache push forward

bend, curl over, block eyes from opening

wet on your eyelashes like mascara

heavy as lead

a split squeezes out a drop

evaporates before it runs

salt caked on like glitter makeup

heavy eyes, red eyes

more headache pushes forward, convulses

can’t escape this time

the river’s dry, no boat to ride on

fragile bones hold only empty pain

grief as old as stone there’s nothing left to give

not even tears

Grace Rust

Location: Farmville, Virginia
About: I am a philosophy student who loves reading, running and writing. This entry is purely from my experiences of crying, whether out of frustration, sadness, loss, or love.
Age: 20

Crying is a release. There are different reasons to release, sometimes you are frustrated with yourself or the world but try to hold it in. You don’t want anyone to see that you’re crying, which makes it all worse. It feels like there is this huge ball in your throat and you’re trying to swallow it, to deny its presence, but your throat is constricting, getting tighter every time you try. Your face is burning hot and bright red and you can no longer see through the tears you’re trying to blink and cough and wipe away discreetly. It builds and builds until you finally release, regardless of whether you consent or it just explodes, and it heaves out of you in wracking sobs. In the bathroom right after class, in the hallway, as you push through the fire exit, in the car after she tells you she you’re too much and it’s over, anywhere it finally takes you. This release lets all the pressure go, it’s like coming up from the deep end of the pool and your head is no longer so heavy and pressured, you’re amazed at the release of pressure that you were trying so hard to pretend wasn’t there. It’s your body and emotions telling you to relinquish control and acknowledge your feelings and then go to sleep.

I feel like I’m being protected by forces I can’t control after I stop trying. There is also this joyous crying, which is a light, sweeter release. There’s no pressure or heaviness and it’s interspersed with laughter and crinkled eyes. I’m not really one to experience this a lot, so I can’t fully describe it.

And then there’s crying as a release of sadness. I think these are as much to let you really release, and all it takes for them to come is an acceptance of its presence, whether it was from you or someone else. They’re quick bursts and low-hum, because that feeling will stay long after the tears are gone. It’s to show not only yourself but also whoever you’re with that you’re sad. It doesn’t release you the same way frustration does, violently; it’s more subtle and the dimness tends to linger. But I think that this one is to bring people to you, it’s a call for help. It’s not only for you but also for others, relinquishing control to allow others to see and feel and empathize and hopefully, help. All these kinds of crying, whether out of frustration, joy, or sadness, are releases and an override of your heart saying “enough.”

Marigrace Bannon

Location: San Francisco, CA
About: My inspiration for all my entries were the prompts, my life, and a great deal of introspection.
Age: 65

I can’t remember when I didn’t cry with ease and fluidity. It is often spontaneous and comes from deep down and my tears will often surprise me. I will feel something on a visceral level and have been unaware that level of depth lived within me.

My crying is usually more about loss, sorrow and as in this past week-Injustice and a blatant disregard for humanity. George Floyd. Since March, and the rapid spread of the Corona Virus, I have cried every day-sometimes just a few salty slow tears and other times, spontaneous eruptions, where my tears overtake me, and I’m gasping for air. Often, its as if deep inside me, something I can’t adequately describe gets stirred and ripped open-raw and my tears come. It is a relief and also foreign because I wasn’t aware something was trapped and required release and exposure. It’s as if it something in my body is letting me know how I feel and I trust it and open and shut my eyes simultaneously.

I guess, tears are my uninvited guests that bring some awareness and understanding to an unpleasant often horrifying situation.

I’m grateful I can cry.

Nivita Arora

Location: India
About: Inspired by a good cry just that morning!
Age: 23

It’s funny how timely these prompts often are. It was just this morning when tears of frustration were fighting their way to the surface, and I found myself glancing up at the bathroom mirror, curious to see if they would succeed. They would have, had their efforts not enchanted me instead. They sent one lone solider first, out of dark brown depths, to test the air — but it arrived gently, almost like an offering, a small globe that held many cries unheard. It longed to bring company with it on its journey down my face, but I refused its plea. Defeated, it slowly retreated back into the shadow that sent it, a silence left still unheard.

That is what crying is - a sound that has been silenced for far too long, finally set free. But whether or not it remains free depends on us. We must catch sight of what it was we need to be liberated of, so that we may blacklist it to prevent its return. Its salty waters are too difficult to swallow, yet too beloved to simply discard, so we ignore them til they stale within us. The tricky part is that when they do finally rise up in protest, it is usually some external force that unlocks the gate - words that anger us, Love or lack thereof, a song of prayer for a stranger. Thus, we may not realize that their resolution ultimately lies in our own hands. At this fork in the road, we must choose to see the broken glass laying around us, so we may consciously discard it. If we try to hold onto the pieces, or grasp at them without realizing their sharp edges, we will continue walking blindly, barefoot, on broken glass.

All that said, I think the ultimately beauty of tears is that, either way – eyes washed with tears always seem to be able to see a little more clearly.

Sharmila Rao

Location: Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
About: An aspiring writer seeking the companionship of words.
Age: 53

WE CRY TOGETHER.

I can still recall the cries of my newborn around twenty -six years ago. Short, sharp, urgent breaths, of a life claiming its newfound existence. Tearless cries for survival. The beginning, in this life journey of tears.

I remember the taste of childhood tears - pure and innocent like clear, light raindrops; salty tears on muddy faces. And, bittersweet tears of youth - love in waiting and yearning.

I have grown up with tears as the constant backdrop to scenes of despair, frustration, anger, fear, and sometimes violence in my home because of reckless drinking.

I know so well those wet-pillow tears that softly rolled down in the silence of the night when I slept beside Mum's weary body.

The shaming, stinging tears when at a family function, my aunt introduced me to her well-heeled friends and their children of my age, scornfully saying, "Her father is a drunkard."

I received the ashes of my parents and brother in little urns. ( They parted within a span of eighteen months. My brother's death especially tragic, followed by a post-mortem. Tears froze when I had to identify his body.)

To hold three lifetimes in a fistful of ash was a deeply humbling thought. The crematorium was by the seaside. I stood motionless as tumultuous grey waves crashed against the shore, their salty spray melding with my tears. No wonder then I love the sea.

Sometimes one feels an urgent build-up within the heart, an almost uncontainable surge of tears which has to be stopped abruptly with a hard gulp in the throat and a perceivable ache in the ears.

No one must see me cry as I sing the National Anthem; as I weep to the haunting melodies of hymns; as I hear the inspiring speeches of great leaders; as I look into the eyes of a roadside urchin; as I think of my son who is far away and as I stand in the temple of God, praying for His mercy.

These days I let the streams flow free; they have been captive for too long. As I read the comments of my wonderful writer friends in the IsolationJournals, the soothing tears comfort me. " Touch this moment, feel it, it's what you had been waiting for. Now make it yours."

I welcome the untold joy.

Tiffany Rose Mockler

Location: Whitefish, Montana
About: Before Covid, I was a professional champion pole dancer and performer who traveled the world teaching and creating physical art. Crying is a beautiful/terrifying thing. Women, I believe, understand the way of the world better so I think it is why we cry more.
Age: 39

Vanessa Vargas

Location: New Jersey, USA
Age: 24

What it can be Vanessa Vargas

Have you ever let yourself get caught in a storm? felt the first drops fall and waited for the last?

The rain can be beautiful the way it washes over the Earth how it fills the holes and cracks on the floor

the way it creates opportunities for the greatest puddle jumping moments

The lightest drizzle or the harshest storm, the rain can be beautiful.

Even in its inconvenience of time or place with shocks of lightning or cries of thunder

Standing in the middle of a downpour dozens of drops hitting your body

somehow, releasing a weight off your shoulders

somehow, releasing a breath you didn’t know you were holding in

I think crying can be like the rain, beautiful

A moment of cleansing reflecting a new start necessary to move forward

through sadness, with joy, filled with laughter

Have you ever cried your heart out, took a big breath

(and another)

(and one more)

and thought maybe, just maybe, the sun would shine again?

Vida Pedersen

Location: Corvallis, Oregon
About: I am an activity director at a retirement community. Each and every journal prompt has provided me with inspiration and something to look forward to. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Age: 32

It’s like drinking cold water on a hot day, like punching a pillow and screaming when you’re mad. Crying is your heart’s release. Fear in the heart loosens with tears. Loss in the heart burns out and down your cheeks.

65. Teardrops – Jon Batiste