Words Hurt

Words don't leave a mark you can see

I am a writer. Words are how I make my living. Words mean everything to me, even as they are intangible. Words, I know, are very powerful. Words can also hurt us like no fist to the eye can.

The intangible bruise

I have been called many ugly, hurtful things, things that have made me cry like a baby for hours and things that have enraged me to an impossible height. No one thinks about the damage caused by the things that we say to each other, and when it comes to the point where we hear ourselves defending who we are against someone who says that they love us, I become the jungle cat on the keyboard like nobody's business.

Some harsh words for those who use their words to hurt those they pretend to Love...

There is nothing like having to defend one's self against someone whose vocabulary only includes words that have no more than 5 letters at the most.  You people sicken me. You behave as the things you say are somehow ok because they do not leave a mark. They do leave a mark, and the mark is in the form of the memory of your angry face, you clenched jaw, the pulsating artery that bulges when you get in our faces, screaming obscenities at us as though your being loud and obnoxious somehow makes your point clear to us when instead what you are doing is simply and only making a fool of yourselves. This is for all those people who have made someone else hurt because of you, and yes, this IS truly how I feel about anyone who is willing to be anything less than kind to someone else, namely your betrothed and every female, young or old, who has been handled less than kindly by the man in their life.  And of course, it is for that one person who still feels that he is better than I am...

You want to believe the things that you are saying. You want to think that she really is a whore, or perhaps that she is having sapphic adventures with her best girlfriends, or that she really is screwing herand your  best guy friends, or that she actually is the cousinfucker that you think she is, but she is not. You are a disgusting person. It bothers me that you have the capacity to think thoughts like the ones that cause you to say that you do not believe her when she tells you that she has been faithful, that she would love nothing more than to hang out with you but can't because you act like a moron when she is around and you act like you are better than she is when in reality you are not. In fact, you are so not better than she is but you sure do think that she is better than you are - in fact, you believe it, because if you didn't you would not go to the lengths you have and the lengths you do to make the person you say you Love feel like shit.

And I know a thing or two about feeling like shit. I know what it is like to defend myself against accusations of infidelity, and I know what it is like to have to try to make a reason for whatever it was that I did or did not do to have to deal with your bullshit. It is not ok for you to call anyone the names that you do. It is not ok to call a woman a whore when she is not. It is not ok to accuse someone of lying when they are not. It is not ok to be an asshole just because you feel badly about you and always have. That you would bother to make it a big deal is one thing, but that you would do so with the expectation that you would be taken seriously is quite another. There was a time when what you said would be the thing that dictated her next move...every move...but you forget one thing, buddy - even this shit is temporary. 

You demand respect but refuse to give it. You accuse without having facts and it is you who lives on just the facts, man. You tell her that everything that she says is an excuse but when it is your turn they are not excuses, they are reasons. And your reasons for brutalizing her verbally is because of your lack of brain capacity. You cannot hold on to a thought that is good about her - you think you own her, and you do not own anyone, not even your self. You want the world to fear you and that is because you are afraid of everything. You are probably even scared of your damned self. 

You expect that people will bow to your own perceived greatness, and then you refuse to see the greatness in others while trashing the one you say you love and everything she's about. The things that charmed you now are the things that you use against that lovely woman, the one you say you love, and you would rather she change to suit your need and your obsession with your fucking self that you have even taken pains to make sure that she has nothing left for her. You want to change her so that you will be able to better understand her, but you make no changes yourself. You want her to reveal to you everything she is, and you want her to be a whore in your bed and you want to have the right to call her one when you think she is out of line. Where it is that you think you have her where you want her is also the same place some other guy WILL have her, and you will be helpless to do anything about it. 

Your words have crushed her to any and every end. Your accusations have caused her to mistrust you and your careless nature has made it so that she has to hide everything from you - all the way down to hiding her purse so that you do not steal what little she has left for herself. You check her cellphone messages and erase the ones from the people who you don't want around her (mostly men, and women with weight problems) and you talk to her pals as though they are scared of you - they aren't. You are only scary to that one woman- the one who you keep on hurting and the one who has always been there. You tell her that she is worthless, that she is stupid, that she is a whore, that she is a cunt, that she is everything that she knows she is not. You tell her over and over, and then you expect her to be grateful that you are still in her life when in reality all she wants is for you to be gone, forever. 

Though you believe that you are right, that you have the right to say what you will, what you are not realizing is that she is saving herself from you one day at a time. She is building reserves of inner strength, and she is enlarging her circle of friends, and she is making her own way in the world without you. If you knew what goes through her head and you found out that you are not the one who is her priority anymore, you would want to kick her ass. And that is why she remains quiet. That is why she has stopped having words of anger and hatred in return for you. That is why she simply smiles while trying to hide the hurt and the tears and that is why she says nothing to you that you needn't know. It is because she has come to depend on herself. She has grown closer to other people, including and especially other men, and it is because she has to relearn all the things that she thought she knew because of you through other people - other male people, and it is not a bad thing.

She is out there in the great big world not staying put under your thumb anymore. You can say whatever it is that you want to her and she will just rebound without going on the rebound. Because of you and your bullshit she has learned how not to talk to people, she has learned how to Love others and most importantly, she has also learned what is NOT Love. She knows that Love hurts but not the way that it does with you. She knows that you will use your charm against her when this all "blows over" and she knows that you will expect her to be as kind and loving as she always has been. And she will be, but it will all only be because in the back of her head she also knows that there is an entire other group of people who Love her, who want to be with her, who will let her be herself and that she will not be called anything but her name for it. She knows that you are not the last man on the planet who will have her and she knows, too, that on said same planet there is another man who is just aching to make all her pain go away...and she wants him to make her pain go away. 

You deserve every little bit of pain you are now feeling, and it is not a mistake that you are having chest pains, that your head seems to sometimes feel like a railrod tie has been shot through it, that you cannot breathe and that you seem to be drinking more and more anti-acid (baking soda and water is not as safe as you think it is, Mr Heart attack). These are the things that are born of anger and hatred, and these are the places that you made her hurt physically, and now you want her to hurt on your behalf more, but the thing is - she refuses to.

She refuses to allow your smallness to become the thing that rules her life again. She refuses to allow your words be what make or break her. She has allowed all of your friends into her world and now they are her friends even as they are yours. They will never see you as you want them to because to them you are now a woman hating wife beater, and you will always be. You tell her that you served your time and paid your debt to society, but you have not yet paid your debt to her because you feel that jail time was enough.

Jail time is not enough. You should be made to wear a sandwich board that is emblazoned with the words "I AM A PANSY ASS" in only your dirty, holey underwear and to walk over the 15 northbound freeway overpass at Bear Valley Road over the New Year's Eve holiday weekend, when everyone is taking off to Las Vegas, and made to do so after it snows, while singing "Don'tcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" loudly, with a bullhorn even, in front of little kids who will hurl snowballs with rocks in the center of them, and you should be made to do so on that holiday weekend Friday, during the daylight. 

And even if you did do this, it would mean nothing and would not be nearly enough to make right the things that you have done and said to her. You have shamed her, made her shun her own family, and you have told people lies about her.

Meanwhile, she has been there, watching your every move, hearing your every word, and quietly making her every plan, and you know what, asshole?

None of those plans involve YOU! 

...he he he...

Yup...damned skippy she's got plans...(right, April? LOL)

I Love You All !!

Rox...

(Rev. Roxanne Cottell is a Freelance Writer, Speaker and Spiritual Counselor residing in Southern California. For inquires regarding the Ka Wahine 'Ui dance program for survivors of domestic abuse,or any other inquiries. please contact her by clicking here. Her latest book, "Goddesses, Priestesses and Queens" can be purchased at lulu.com and amazon.com