Tag Archives: Empathy

Full of Tears

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In my life I have seen but never known,
Those people who seem to have forgotten
How to cry and weep and still be grown,
For such a sin it would be to have shown;
A sin against what? False masculine pride
Has broken the lost son who wished to cry,
For behind that fair visage of joy and cheer,
Don’t you know that that man is full of tears?

Everyday I keep bottled in my chest,
A scream and a wail: for what, I can’t say;
For all I’ve been left with since you’ve been gone:
A handful of memories to pass along,
And a bucket or box of rain for keeps,
The shattered pictures of tomorrow weep,
Gazing in the mirror, nothing is clear,
The wellspring of my heart is full of tears.

Is it as with the most acidic rain?
Would it burn the ground where stumbling, my feet
Thoughtlessly go and patter a refrain,
Drown out the ceaseless echoes of my brain;
For what type of man should I wish to be?
One whom it is never said to be seen,
As one who has known the hopes and the fears
Of mortal men, so weak and full of tears.

So alone I walk, afraid to project:
I saw a man with the face of a god,
Head held high, as if he had to protect,
Each and every rag that covered his neck;
I’ve never been one to self-actualize,
And I’ve never been one to wear a disguise;
His eyes flit away as soon as they draw near,
Afraid to recall the blessing of tears.

I watch my screen pixelate; afraid to
Release and let the dam be broken; the
Pressure builds and builds, I can feel it, too,
In the speckled starry skylines where blew,
The astral dust of dreams now forgotten,
I never thought this could really happen,
I don’t remember before; now I fear,
I’ll never be free of these cursed tears.

Across the auld wide ocean, where the rain-
Bows are fractured by the cresting brine, and
The turquoise sky waits for pale night to wane,
The tide always keeps its boundless refrain,
In the grotto where dwelling, I try to
Escape in the passage of time, I pool
Up the blind hours spent toiling for fear
That no god left us this ocean of tears.

Escaping I find, in the void unbound
That each star that I visit has its own song,
And though no ears will ever hear a sound,
In the endless vacuum of space I’ve found,
The company meant for those who alone
Through life have wandered and finally outgrown,
The broken armor which long trapped them here,
Whose eyes can no longer make any tears.

Empathy for the Devil

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One of the great walls of isolation I’ve found myself up against is not a lack of empathy, but empathy of the wrong kind. Empathy for the murderer. Empathy for the suicidal. Empathy for the psychotic and psychopathic. It seems contradictory that the ability to empathize would be an isolating variable. Being able to understand what others feel and think should be a source of bonding and connection. But what about when that understanding is with the man on death row? Who then do you bond with?

Empathy for the devil pushes away all God-fearing people. The phrase, “I just can’t understand why [so and so] would do that” is a phrase I try to never allow to cross my mind. And yet it is one of the first things that pops into the average Joe’s head when he hears about the latest school shooting. “Why would he do that?” The question is rhetorical. He doesn’t want to know or understand why. “My sympathies for all those who lost a child.” But Joe also doesn’t want to understand what the parents feel either. He will sympathize, but not empathize. He can lift a perceived burden from his own shoulders by sending condolences and carry on with his life. To quote Robert Frost: “And they, since they were not the ones dead, turned to their affairs.”

The phrase I always try to remember when I hear of a terrible occurrence is: “Nothing human is alien to me.” This is a very unpopular sentiment. The best example is the Nazis, who have been summed up as mad, labeled as evil, and demonized in near totality. Average Joe doesn’t want to look at the Average Hans and know why Hans let his Jewish neighbors be killed. Then Joe would have to look into himself and practice that horrible, frightful word: introspection. Because to understand how another can do harm or stand by idly, one must be able to understand why they might do the same. Notice that I said might, not would. Just because I can empathize with a man who killed his family doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same. It simply means I can understand how that man got to that point, and how, with a different set of circumstances or a slight change in character, I could be that man.

That ability, the ability to empathize with the devil, renders me practically on the same level as the devil. Watching other people blindly lord their own impeccable morality over the damned is frustrating, yet how can I stand up for the psychopath or the drug-addled? I must sit in silence, isolated by understanding. And I can’t make people understand. Their defenses would never be let down so easily, their walls are as impenetrable as my own. Are you one of these people? Take a good hard look in the mirror, and then a long sensitive look around. The devil begs no sympathy, but even he must desire a little empathy.