These Words

Spoken words, often hard to understand,

Their true meaning


Sometimes cruel.
We push them away, trying not to care
But whom are we kidding?
Each word spoken feels painful

Like a stab in the flesh, slow and degrading.
Yet we try to push them away,

Try not to believe.
We seek comfort, softness, words of love
And although they may bandage our wound
We still feel the pain.
Those throbbing words, we try to shove away

They don’t leave
They keep coming back, over and over.
We try not to show the pain we feel
For we fear those words
Those very meaningful and destructive cuts.
Often the words find the weak ones,
The least deserving
But what do we do?
We just stand there, still, paralyzed by the words.

Slowly, over time our wounds heal,


The throbbing fades
Kinder words start to override the unkind stabs.
We push forward; feelings of pride and confidence find their way in.
Yet we are left with a scar

No one sees it, but there it lies on our heart
Undeniable, irremovable scar.
A reminder of those words--those detrimental, and agonizing words
We grow from them,
We become the better person.
We teach bright meaningful words,
Trying to prevent the wounds,
Trying to prevent the scars,

We help.