Overwhelmed, our vulnerable hearts fill up,
fragile from the weight of emotion,
yet there is no collapse or implosion,
only the soundless falling of a single tear.

A drop in the ocean without noise or ceremony,
I can feel it reverberating somewhere
in the voice that I know and a stranger's cold echo
lies the silence of letting so much of myself go.

Letting them go is a release so profound,
I am always surprised that something so potent
from inside can rain so beautifully without making a sound,
from the immediacy of a present moment
or an overwhelming flash of memory.

Maybe its sound is untraceable to us,
cadences and inflections of a language
that would make us forget our better angels.

Never does a teardrop form without a story,
each born in the presence of the past and now,
with every hidden chapter in between,
so full of various histories until finally
falling down rosy raw cheeks.

Leaving behind a trail on damp skin,
its travels are muted, laden with pain,
all the fears I've yet to give a voice to.

They race downward leaving my cheek,
as if desperate to escape me,
as if the stories they contain refuse
to be a part of me any longer.

Their ripples travel in every direction,
a message telegraphed to a heart
that can still hold me and keep me safe.

Not each one is bitter or meant to make you stay,
some hold resilient glimmers when striking the light,
hopeful reminders flickering even when I can't remember
the last time I laughed so hard, delighted in all my being
Drops in the ocean without noise or ceremony,
unheard verses and choruses rippling,
trembling along from that place where your heart
knew me as no other ever had or could.

At times I let them go to keep
an even darker pain at bay,
to shield myself and those I know
from where I've been,
that I don’t burst at times from
all the love I still hold within.

Maybe its sound is immeasurable and infinite,
booming, laughing, screaming that would deafen
fragile hearts with the potency of the stories contained,
that sound of our better angels flying towards light.

But something that cleanses our souls deserves
to create sound when fleeing from us,
whether it's just a singular sad note
or the sweep of a loving symphony.

I certainly feel the reverberation of each tear
that seems to fill my very core with echoes.

Echoes.

Then silence.