Title: Stoic

Author: Emma Neale

In: Sport 41: 2013

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, 2014, Wellington

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Verse Literature

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Sport 41: 2013

Emma Neale — Stoic

Emma Neale

Stoic

We couldn’t cry about love because you just have to get on with it and of course there were the children.

We couldn’t cry about desire unrequited because it’s all a lot of water turned away from under the bridge, it might as well not be there, and of course there were the children.

We couldn’t cry about a lot of things: the cancer and the soldiers and the repressive laws and the children, because of the supermarket, the surgeon, the car, the work, the appointments, the decimation of natural habitats, the finances and the decisions, the extracurricular activities for everyone, the aspirations, the deadlines and the dishes, which sounds silly but you know how it is. You have to get on with it.

We couldn’t cry about the dishes, the driving, or the shopping still being there even with the cancer and the love and the lust and the children; because after all, you have to get it in perspective.

We couldn’t cry about the house and the sale and the loss of profit because of the children and the chores and the cancer and voting the right way when everyone else voted the wrong way and protesting with placards, emails and Facebook petitions and of course above all again because of the children.

We couldn’t cry about it because we weren’t after all children and the children were crying about something else altogether and they didn’t understand, of course they didn’t, they were only children.

We couldn’t cry and there were reasons we couldn’t cry and they became metaphors, vessels that both carried our tears and concealed them because you can’t just—there’s no point; the number of times we could have cried, you wouldn’t read about it.