涙〔裂け目〕[*]

I have often wondered what tears taste like; pinches of salt tossed into droplets of water, sour like those grapes that the fox could never reach, sweet like cheap cola lollies that were pungently sour at the core or bitter like tasting your hands after grinding leaves with them. It just never made sense to me. Fat, warm droplets streaming across your cheeks, settling at your lips, or getting lost in the creases of the fabric below. Some even managing to run down your neck, figuratively slitting it down the middle, making you gulp more and more until you realize that no matter how much you gulp, you can never fill in the vacuum within you. During joy or depression, how those little sneaky tears never seemed to get enough of your company and kept coming back like a bunch of unexpected relatives. How, no matter what we do, we seem to welcome them with open arms.



* 涙〔裂け目- Japanese for tears.