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I used to have this platoon leader back when I was at Nysc Orientation Camp .
One evening
He told me:
"I don’t know what it is,
But something about you reminds me of my ex-fiancé"
He kind of looked off,
A twinkle moistened his eye,
And wrinkles hoisted either side
Of his lips
And he said: "she's is so "heartless "
Wow.
“F you too”, I thought.
I blew it off.
I acted like it never happened.
But I added those words to the collection of:
"you are", "You Always", "You never", "Why can't you", "I wish you", "You used to", "I told you", "Try harder", and "How could you's",
That I always stow
Below deck,
Hidden away
Like Hannibal Lecter’s prey
Hidden with the collection of words
That hammer nails through my wooden skin,
That built a coffin within
My gut
A coffin only I could see,
Only I knew existed.
It was a coffin encasing a collection
Of words,
That hurt.
That sting.
And when there's no outlet,
Those words fester,
Forming fear,
Foaming up like crashing waves,
Creating an ocean of excuses,
To lash out.
Words,
Are weapons of personal destruction,
We know this as a human race,
We're taught as children
That sticks and stones break bones
But the hard truth is
That a crooked comment
Can rip guts from stomachs,
Smash esteem
Like ants under a five-year-old’s sneaker,
And callouses
Don’t form as easy as one may think.
Years ago I had a physics lecturer who scared everyone.
I hid in back corners near the last rows of the seats
To ward off lightning bolt remarks.
One day he said,
To the smartest girl in the class -
Who had speech difficulty
The one who always fucked up the presentation
One day he said to that girl:
“If only you had as much drive in presentation as you as you do in physics,
I bet you could go far”
That smart girl said nothing.
She just added those words to her own coffin inside.
But her coffin was not thick oak like mine,
It wasn't designed
To hold the hurt
Or channel it anywhere
Like into a poem.
Today,
That smart girl sits behind cold iron bars.
Those words piled up for years
Until she could no longer cherish herself,
Until her confidence was a cesspool,
Drowning aspirations in anguish.
And so one day when that boyfriend,
The one who ran around behind her back,
Lashed out,
She lashed back.
Her outlet
Was a long sharp knife,
She sunk the swollen words
Of all her verbal beaters
In the form of a stab
In that cheater's neck
Words,
Are weapons of personal destruction,
We know this as a human race,
We're taught as children
That sticks and stones break bones
But the hard truth is
That a crooked comment
Can rip guts from stomachs,
Smash esteem
Like ants under a five-year-old’s sneaker,
And callouses don’t form as easy as one may think.
I’m not saying everyone’s made of glass,
But not everyone’s a soldier either,
So think about what you’re gonna say
Before you say it,
because a bully doesn't always hide in the shell of the biggest kid on the playground.
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