Words

Whenever someone says “sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt”, they’re lying.



Under what circumstances do broken arms and fractured bones hurt more than the scars that run deep into our souls?

They get carved in our minds, sticking to us. Forever engraved into our memories, poisoning our thoughts.

Every day was a battle.

Armies of words and phrases grew and merged to form new hybrid weaponry.

Words shot out mouths like bullets.

Outnumbered, we ran for our lives day after goddamn day.

Unfortunate enough to have a birthmark on her face, she grew out her hair to hide who she was. They said it looked like a mistake that someone tried to erase but couldn’t get the job right.

“Ugly.”

Every day she walked, her head bowed with the weight of the names they snickered at her.

She’s too scared to look in the mirror because every time she does, the shrill laughter of all the other little girls rings through her ears. Despite having beautiful children and a loving husband, she lives her life believing she’s just a mark.

They see more than her face. To them, she’s been nothing less of amazing.

To them, the definition of beauty begins with, “mum”.

He was found, broken and unwanted beside the floor.

Not because his parents didn’t love him or ran to find a better fate. He was the result of a mixed cocktail of one part recklessness and two part tragedy.

“Adopted” was now a slander.

When he was 13, they put him under tests and spells, prescribing him with poisons to help ease the pain. Drowning in a wave of anti-depressants, he swam back up to the surface, only to face the snarling monster of attempted suicide a total of five times.

To his friends, he’s an inspiration. To people who don’t understand, he’s a conversation topic. To them, depression isn’t about sanity. It’s about attention.

There are more of us out there.

We grew up believing no one would want us. We grew up being told no one would ever fall in love with us. We would never meet that special someone that made us feel special. We’d never meet that someone who would make us feel like the world something they crafted from their hearts just for us.

When our eyes ran out of tears, we cried through our flesh, carving into our arms and wrist. They screamed what we couldn’t. We tried emptying ourselves, so we would feel nothing.

During the day, school is a giant circus, filled with clowns, acrobats and lion tamers. Then there are us. The freaks. We are the bearded lady and genetically mutated humans presented for your pleasure.

At night, when everyone else gets tucked away by their parents with a kiss and a hug, we toss and turn. When all the other children sleep in their warm beds, we get up and walk the tightrope of life, juggling what’s left of our sanity.

We walk, blindfolded loneliness.

We walk, dressed in depression.

We walked with shadows leering down at us, flickering past us and whispering words of doubt into our ears. They press in, constricting us.

Some of us fell.

There was no safety net. The fallen lie, strewn and smashed in their true form.

Broken fragments.

Leftovers.

As for the rest of us, our lives will only ever be an act of balance. Practicing. Waiting to be awarded the badge of bravery. We’re waiting to unite and scream “they were wrong”.