Reanimate

Do I really look that scary?
It is just the way my face is made, son.
And it is just the stone I have carved my expressions out of for many years, to stay safe.
Now I find that the smile I show you has signs of granite hardness,
not the love that I wish to put there
not the respect and pride that I feel.
Your eyes remind me too much of what it was once like to feel joy
and let it creep into my features
to feel grief and sadness, and let my face cry
and looking on you now, in joy and in sadness
reminds my why I carved this granite face, these tearless stone eyes
because those who saw my tears wished, not to dry them as I wish to,
but to use them, to cause them,
to make joy into rage, to make happiness into tears for their own ends
and I could no longer stand it.
And with every glance I wish that never to happen to you
yet to prevent it, would I carve you a granite face, tearless stone eyes?
Or reanimate my own?