Ode to a Tear That Rolled Down My Cheek

O small, quiet traveller

that left my eye without asking,

I felt you before I noticed you—

warm, familiar, like someone I used to love,

yet strange and distant

as if you belonged to another lifetime.

You were not born of grief tonight,

not carved out of deep sorrow—

you came from that trembling country

between anxiety and hope,

from the fault line where hurting

tries to stitch itself back together.

You slid down my cheek

like an old friend returning

to a home that no longer fits.

I wondered—

were you lonely on that journey?

Should I have sent more

to walk beside you,

so you wouldn’t wander the landscape

of my face alone?

Or should I have wiped you off

with the anger reserved for memories

that masquerade as habits—

the old, faithful ghosts

your brothers and sisters once carried?

Tell me,

little droplet of salt and story,

do you hold a memory

of everything I’ve survived,

or are you merely a reflex

my body still hasn’t forgotten?

You did not answer—

you only glimmered,

fleeting, uncertain,

like something half-remembered

or half-forgotten.

And when you fell,

all that remained

was a quiet trace—

of something shifting,

or maybe nothing at all.

Soon enough,

you vanished—

absorbed into the world

as softly as you arrived,

yet you left a thin, cooling trail behind,

as if to remind me

that even the moments I don’t hold onto

leave their own small signatures

on the surface of me.

Perhaps you will return

in another moment of stillness,

another cracked breath,

to finish the sentence

it began tonight.

Or perhaps your silence

was the message—

and I am the one

who will haunt its memory.