I don’t cry easily and I wish I did. My tear ducts are too proud, trained from years of holding it all back, strained stoicism. Every hate is held in control, every sarcastic remark that would have in my youth stung indiscriminately at any king or fool is forced back down my throat, its sharp tip tearing, ripping organs as it strong-arms against the will to morph into a near physical shape . Most of the time, all the hurt, frustrations, and anxiety accumulate, grow and fester into ugly visions of self mutilation, wrap themselves around my consciousness and they tug, tug, tug like a ball of rubber bands around my heart, making it difficult to breathe. Every intake of air becomes a hard-fought suction through an oxygen mask.
It all falls apart about once a year. Once a year, at some unpredicted time, I will cry. I cried last weekend, I howled and struggled to breathe through my tears, I screamed, my mother shut the door to contain my anguish. Teeth clenched, fists clenched, rubber bands snapping, I rolled myself into a ball, catatonic but for a face contorted into pieces of unrecognizable flesh like a Francis Bacon, cradled by a mother who both knows and doesn’t how much it hurts, this creature set free. And then, I am dead to the world. I fall asleep, only I am still awake, but empty now, the cancer excised, healing. It was as though a veil had been lifted from my eyes, said Claude Monet when he realized the possibilities of painting from Jongkind.
I am now a man with nothing to lose. I have no one to impress, I don’t desire to advance myself in this profession. Just do it- impassionedly. This is just another ordeal. You, you who dare tell me what steps to take to become a better teacher, how to manage my lessons, you who would dare to tell me what is possible and what not, or how life should be lived, here, here, the unspoken law that you do not leave before six. Since it is unspoken, I will pretend to have heard nothing… You are a lightweight when it comes to the sheer power to imagine. I have my breakdowns, I grant you that, my emotional fragility, heed this though- do not presume to know more than me. You may have been at it longer, but no one else in any proximity you want to define can dare lay claim on possessing a more beautiful mind. Terrified, impatient, it is not time though the skies are fast changing their colors. I am afraid I will miss the evening star as it manifests itself.
