Why I Cry More in California
by Caitlin Callahan
Point Loma Nazarene University
Caitlin Callahan is working towards a B.A. in Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. As she pursues a career in writing; she hopes to carry on a childhood passion for storytelling. Caitlin has been published in her school’s newspaper, The Point, and has art published in the creative arts magazine, Driftwood.
I cry too much
because the clouds where I live refuse to cry for me—
at least, they don’t cry often enough.
Last time I checked my watch, the world was ticking toward
taking its own life, and so humans cry, all humanity cries,
tears plop to our own feet, congregating with one another,
patting one another’s backs and offering words of comfort
before flight begins, sprawling to the Atlantic, to the Pacific—
to the Nile, to the Yangtze, to the Amazon—
and then the heavens breathe in our tears,
exhaling them out into fluff that’s not really fluff,
and cry.
But in California, the heavens don’t cry too often.
Heaven doesn’t breathe in my tears as much—
so tears plop to my feet, congregate with the others’,
congregate with my neighbors’,
sprawling toward my neighbors,
to my mothers, to my fathers, to my friends, to my foes,
and then they breathe in my tears, our tears,
exhaling them out into emotional fluff that’s not really fluff,
and cry.
