Tears.
What if tears left scars?
No, not emotional scars. I mean, every single tear causes something to stir inside, whether it be jubilant or dejected. And not just marks—we all know the horrors of crying oneself to sleep, because you have these terrible puffy eyes in the morning—but real, deep, scars. The ones that hurt. The ones that give a tingle every time you think about them, as if the ghost of the weapon that hurt you is still plunging into the abyss of your broken—if even slightly—heart.
Would that make us less willing to cry?
And if tears had the ability to leave scars, what would they be made of? Would it be like the golden blood of the gods—Ichor—tangible, yet highly acidic? So that they would have to be blinked away as quickly as possible? Although, well, the same is with regular tears, in some cases. Or would it carve the soul? As in, every single mark that your soul gets shows up on your face?
It could be.
Now, they say that scars fade, but would these fade?—scratch that, actually, because I'm sure that they will fade, eventually. The thing that we now have to consider is when and how they will fade. And here we go into the deep pits of my mind, past the shallow, the stress, the longing, the dreams, the heart, the passion, the impartialness, all the way down to where all of those come from—my imagination. The core of me. I think that some tears will leave lesser scars.
If tears left scars...
So think of it this way—the skin has several layers physically, correct? Let's say that it also has emotional layers. The layers each have a very thin coating, which are things like the things we dream, the things we like, et cetera, et cetera. And the very last layer is our emotions, or imaginations—call it whatever you want. I call it the 'core'. But the more emotional the tear is, the deeper it will travel down the layers of coating, thus making the scars. And the scars that don't fade are the ones that make it all the way down to the core.
If tears left scars...
Like our atmosphere and its layers. It goes—Exosphere, Thermosphere, Mesosphere, Stratosphere, and Troposphere. And not even that. The tear has to go through the layers of the earth as well—which is why we seldom find scars that don't heal forever.
If tears left scars...
Now moving on to what the scars actually look like…I imagine them glowing faintly white as the tears fall down your face, but the minute they drip off, it fades to an ugly color—like the color of a bruise. You see, tears are something that are spontaneous. They can be knocked out of you. For example, if you hit a little girl, then the tears might very well be knocked right out her, just as a cry of 'ow!' can be knocked out of you if you happened to be hit. So, the opening of the wound is spontaneous, which causes very little or no pain. The scar forms very quickly.
If tears left scars...
But as horrific as that sounds, sometimes I wish tears would leave scars. I see him every single day, crouched in a corner of his bed. And I know that he is crying. But a few minutes later, he is downstairs again, cracking bad jokes and fooling around with Natalie's hair.
If tears left scars...
But I saw him cry. I saw him. I swear to god that he was crying.
If tears left scars...
Then maybe I'd be able to comfort him.
If tears left scars...
Then maybe I'd know that he needed help.
If tears left scars...
Then maybe they wouldn't be gone in a single sweep of a shirt sleeve. Please, don't cry. Please, please, please don't cry. But even more than that, please don't pretend that you didn't cry.
Because that is what cracks the so-called steady folds of my heart.
And I feel like my tears leave scars, as well.