TEARS

By Jan M. Smith


The tears on my face feel like blood from my soul
They come when I think and are warm as they fall
Coursing down my heart and causing a pain
As I remember what I never knew once again

They say you can never change the past
But your yesterday is made of broken glass
If you lived a past that was never yours
And was a hidden deception so he could endure.

The tears are shed for the ache and the pain
The tears are shed for the blood that stains
Your memory of life, some good and some bad
But regardless, now it is all too sad

Your attempts at life have left you a bitter soul
Hiding your heart in a wrapped box that is so cold
But never understanding why it was that way
Because that is not what he had to say

And now you wonder, as wise women do
Didn’t you really know; feel, weren’t you really in tune?
Did you turn a blind eye thinking what was couldn’t be
All the while on the inside being taken to your knees.

So now the years have passed and many lies have been told
And the life in your hands, this one that you hold
Feels like nothing, feels like pain, poison and a joke
And you scream out “I am so stupid” as you choke

When you are the last to know, that one in the cold
And you are a trick pony until that grows old
You just feel like a fool, an idiot, a dolt
And this is one time you just wish that you weren’t

To start your life over with illness and age
To start your life over with fear and rage
Is daunting but you know that you will never believe
Of any love or anything that this person has to say

Your heart has been twisted and wrung and tossed
Your soul has been hollowed and spit on and lost
Your existence was useless for the future you prayed
And the blisters on your psyche are too many today

Start over, start over, start over you say?
Be sweethearts now, when I begged in those days
For a touch or a thought or a kiss from my mate
That never was coming and now is it too late?

I have started over so many times in my heart
There is no place to start, to put a new mark
For the other mark’s graves stand rotting inside
And those useless marks are reminders I can’t hide

I was used and I am used up
I was cheated on and I am old
I was scarred and I am ugly
And my tears are blood from my soul