Analysis of Why Can't I Weep?
Why can’t I weep?
I’d like to.
Fuck, God knows I’d like to.
But I can’t.
I have too many people that depend on me.
So many others to whom my stability is lode-bearing.
As much as I’d like to break down.
To bawl like a newborn babe.
I can’t. I can’t be weak.
Not when I have to be so strong.
They need me.
I wish I could double over and
Let the tears run down my neck.
But even when I’m all alone
I can’t.
I want to drop to my knees and scream,
But I can’t promise myself I’ll get up.
The bottom-line creeps closer.
The children – as much as I’d love some –
Get pushed back another year.
I can’t afford to.
I’d give them everything
But they don’t exist.
They can’t
And I don’t have a way to fight that.
My whole life I’ve fought,
But I can’t fight this.
I can’t grit my teeth past inflation.
I can’t endure authoritarianism.
I hurt.
But I can’t weep.
I feel the tears well in the back of my eyeballs.
I lean in to the pressure
But the tears don’t come.
Why won’t they come?
I want them to flow –
To drain my insecurity and fear.
But they won’t –
And they don’t.
Everything-but-fucking-everything
Is killing me.
So why can’t I weep?
Scheme | ABBCDEFGHIDJKLCMNOPQBERCSTUVPWAXOPPYQZBEDA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111 111 111111 111 111101010111 1101011101001110 11111111 1110101 111111 11111111 111 111110100 1011111 11011101 11 111111101 111101111 0101110 010111111 1110101 11011 11110 11101 11 011101111 11111 11111 111111010 1101001000 11 1111 11011001111 1101010 10111 1111 11111 111010001 111 011 1011010 1101 11111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,192 |
Words | 259 |
Sentences | 32 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 42 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 833 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 227 |
About this poem
A little something about the creeping worry that surrounds an inability to break down.
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"Why Can't I Weep?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/131959/why-can%27t-i-weep%3F>.
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