lionhearted

I never realized before today how you laughed to hide the tears and how you held your hands in your lap to conceal their shaking. You appeared so strong, so confident, and I remember getting annoyed at your exuberant and thoughtless nature, but I was so wrong. I saw it all today, playing out in front of me like a movie, and showing me that underneath the smiling face lay a heart that so desperately wanted to get it right. Every week you put on the mask to hide any traces of your pain, but today I could sense it, flowing through the songs you played, illuminating your vulnerability with every note. Maybe I never noticed it before because you showed no interest in learning, in fact, you gave the distinct impression of nonchalance and impatience. But something was different today, every time you missed a note I could feel the desperation rising and every time you nearly gave up, you tried again {usually you throw your hands in the air and call it quits}, hitting the keys with more force than necessary as if making a statement to the world. Maybe I never saw the hurt because you did not want me to see it, maybe you did not even know it was there lurking in the shadows like your nightmares, but what bothers me the most is that I never looked. I did my duty as a teacher, I taught you the best I knew how, but I never looked into your eyes.
                         And that is my first duty,
                             my first calling,
                               but I assumed I knew you.
I realized today that I cannot truly love if I am only seeing what I want to see, if I lazily brush away the pain of others in an excuse that my life is hard. Because when I look around me and see the grief that lodges in the laugh lines around your face like an old story book of ages past, I wonder whether I even know what it feels like to have sobs welling up inside your heart until your chest hurts and yet no tears offer relief. I have felt pain that weighs heavy in the darkness and I know loneliness, but I have never gone through the grief that you have and my heart has never known the kind of separation from a loved one like you have. I trusted your mask, I let your facade fool me into thinking that was who you really were, and forgot that you have seen some of life's hardest lessons up-close and personal. I'm sorry.