Pain and Chemicals

by johannespunkt

“Will you teach me how to cry?” asks the boy with the broken nose. He is crying now because he just slammed his face into the wall, but that’s not what he is talking about. “I want to be able to cry from emotions, not just pain and chemicals.” He hates cutting onions. “Will you teach me how to cry?”

I tell him, “I can’t teach you that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just a thing that happens. You don’t think about it.”

“Can you teach me not to think about it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Then I’d have to think about it.”