Tears Poem by Nikhail Pandhi

I am about to weep in sadness,
I am about to cry in joy,
But both extremities are merely,
The stoical tears of a boy.

Why don’t these tears know elation?
Why don’t they know disdain?
Why, can they not fathom harmony
Or even an ounce of pain?

If I wanted to despise evil
Or celebrate the glories of goodness
Oh why, oh why, do my eyes exude
Such dispassionate drops, to express?

I thought tears exacerbate sadness,
I thought they invigorate bliss,
But just like a man in drunken stupor
One doesn’t know which emotion is his.

Whether to tread the path of trepidation,
Or that of exuberance and gaiety,
Vacant vistas, tears make more vacant
As if they were, an impostor deity.

That when one dies, you start to cry,
That when one’s born, tears roll by,
Is all redundant, for these tears
Are stony vignettes and forlorn lies.

I am about to weep in sadness,
I am about to cry in joy,
But both extremities are merely,
The stoical tears of a boy.