Five Tears

There are many feelings that are particularly familiar to some people.
Perhaps to some it's the soft feeling of their dogs fur between their fingers. Or to others it may be the warm embrace of their lover.
The smell of a home cooked meal, or the sound of a mothers lullaby.
But for me, it is the ever familiar feeling of a single wet tear rolling down a very dry cheek.
A single tear is the beginning of an avalanche chain of events, the first domino of the chaos that is to come.
A single tear is what propels the anger, the fear, the hopelessness, the worthlessness.
We might do something we regret, an angry text, a furious scream, a sorrowful sob.
And eventually that single tear becomes another tear.
The second tear comes down much quicker than the first, hurtling down the track the first tear had set up.
It doesn't always follow the first tear to the end though.
It might diverge its path at the last second choosing to go down the lips instead of the jaw. Because, it doesn't care, the second tear. It doesn't matter.
The second tear is the limbo of crying. The what do I do, what can I do?
You are locked in place, you cannot move, you cannot think, you must simply wait until the third tear comes.
Waiting could take an eternity, or it could take no time at all. But when it comes, there's no mistaking it.
The third tear is the rush of emotion, it rushes down the face and splashes on the ground, making a mess with its presence.
It takes action, does what needs to be done and doesn't apologise for it.
People look at you as if you're a different person during the third tear. Determined, so sure of yourself.
The third tear does everything it possibly can while it's still here so that by the time for the fourth tear arrives, it doesn't know what to do with itself.
It comes and goes, trying not to trod on anything, trying not to make the situation worse. The, are you ok? Am I ok?
It makes you think about what you've done, why you were crying in the first place. You think, was it all that bad? Am I crying for a good reason?
And then you see the third tear on the collar of your shirt and remember. You remember all the heart break, the pain, the loss. Everything you've endured up to this point, and so the fifth tear arrives.
The fifth tear is warm, revisiting every tear that's fallen before it. It tries and tries to fix everything.
The motherly kiss on the forehead.
The fifth tear listens. It hears what you have to say, and it cares. It tells you that everything is going to be ok.
That's enough, it's ok, you can stop now.
And you feel calm. You feel relief. You feel satisfied.
 
Five tears.
That's all, for me anyway.
Just five tears to get out the sadness, the pains of the past, the bad thoughts.

Because when you've cried so much in the past, you have to start rationing yourself.