I Cry at Movies Now

My mother tells me that we are damless
people. We have always carried reservoirs
in our stomachs, have always leaked
into others without meaning to.
In sadness, our jaws riverbend.
In beauty, our teeth jingle.

It is easy, she says, to be solid,
harder to be fluid: our pain shapes our bodies
in the same way beavers
chew wood to build home.

I have inherited pools
but I want to be a house on stilts,
protected from my own flooding.
I want to bear weight without puddling
on the kitchen tile, plugging my ribs
to stop them from spurting.

But think of your power.
We dissolve maps, blur intersections,
turn lemonade to salt. We make strangers
wonder what they have done wrong.

When they ask us, we say,
nothing. Our tears have rained
for so long that we don’t remember
where our mouth is.

 

 

***

Samantha Fain is a writer from Connersville, Indiana. She is an undergraduate student studying psychology and creative writing at Franklin College. Her work has previously appeared in The Indianapolis Review.

Read ‘After the Astronomical Union, 2006’ also by Samantha Fain, here.

 

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