Excerpts: Ugly Cry

“I woke up to an another world. The streaks of dust-speckled sunlight made my eyelids glow and for a few moments I didn’t know a thing about a thing. The world didn’t have to inform me about the past and I didn’t need to think about the future.

I lay there for maybe five minutes without thoughts, without words, just nothing. It was as soon as my legs moved off the bed and toward the floor that gravity seemed to care about me too much and the weight of my body seemed heavier than most days. I stood with a stiffness that each step was able to loosen for me.

I found the bathroom and didn’t eagerly look for a mirror, but there it was anyway. In the reflection I had to remember, no other way but to notice. Those eyes aren’t from laughing, they aren’t even good at seeing, as I consciously put on my glasses. My face was swollen from a one- minute cry. It always reacted so abrasively. I always looked fatter and older after a cry, it was never a romantic look like I read in many books, it was quite ugly on me.”