The speaker opens by admitting he cried for a stranger, a man he never knew, and for that man's grieving daughter. He can feel other people's pain easily, even cry at movies or when his ex-wife moves on, yet he never allows himself to cry for his own sorrow. His feelings, he says, are always "creeping round" and "begging to be set free," but he keeps them locked up.
The heart of the poem is his fear. If he opens the "flood gates," he worries the rain will never stop. He wonders whether crying might bring peace and help him heal, and he imagines tears big enough to be "a river and an ocean." But the poem ends on a bleak question: if he let it all out, what would be left of him? He sees only a lonely man "drowning in sea of broken dreams."
The mood is raw, sad, and honest. Water imagery runs throughout, and the speaker seems caught between wanting relief and dreading the loss of control.