Why clowns can’t cry.

I know a clown who does balance on the world like it is one happy joke. Everywhere is a circus. She juggle words…shiny like tinsel…soft like marshmallows…giggly, childish puns…bursting pop like balloons, and toot-toot-loud like party horns…words that make she  family and friends laugh and say, Ohhh you so sillyyyy.

Is a nice feeling, y’see, making people laugh.

But then, in mid-January, the clown stumble upon two words that been twinkling in the shadows, waiting, like the sharp teeth of Mr. Wolf.

Carcinoma.

Malignant.

The report for the lumpectomy on mammy state them in stark black ink.  

Then the doctor drop more words on the mammy of the clown. “I’m sorry to have to tell you,” he say, “but you have breast cancer.”

Not that the clown didn’t suspect all along. She did read the radiologist report in December, she ain’t a fool though she family does think so sometimes.

How do you want people to be around you, mammy?” the clown ask.

“I want people to be cheerful. Not gloomy and depressing,” mammy say.

I know what mammy mean. When people act panicky and scared, it does affect the sense of healing. Even if the news is bad, give it in a calm manner…this does help a body assimilate the information easier.

The clown keep on she happy face ‘til mammy go overseas for healing. But even now, with mammy over there, when the clown can release all she tears, the clown still don’t.

She cry yes, but as soon as she begin to feel as if she gon drown, she stop them tears, turn them into salt blocks and shove them in she head, into she heart. She know that if she let them rush like ocean, they gon wash away every bit of colour, and there gon be no more paint for the bright smile she need to wear. And the ball she balance on gon dissolve.

Every morning then, without fail, the clown put on she joie de vivre and tumble out.