Happily Ever After?

Why do you choose to fill your cup with hate? Love leaves a much sweeter taste. You were thirsting for something so you took a swig, eager for relief. You tilted your head back and drank it all in. The words swirled around on your tongue for a brief moment, but rather than swallow them, you spewed them out, each drop leaving behind an impenetrable stain.

Your words sliced through the once-calm air. They gained strength as they traveled and then sprayed out with a vicious fury heading straight towards your target. You thought only she would hear them, as your speech was intended for her alone, but you were wrong. Some of the residue landed on all of us and we would be forever watermarked as well.

She put her hand to her face in disbelief. The mirror showed each one of your words cascading like teardrops down her wrinkled cheeks. The words seeped deep into her veins, traveling quickly through her system, heading straight for the heart. They found a small tear and let themselves in. You hurt her in the most in the most demeaning way: by spitting words of hatred into her heart. They will remain in there forever, your words.

The heart is both good and bad in that it stretches far beyond its capacity for love, yet it can never truly forget when it’s been broken. Each time it gets broken, it’s harder to fix. There is simply no glue that works.

Where did all of this come from? Who gave you the right to step on a human soul? One day the same may happen to you and then where will you turn? Maybe one day a different synapse will pop. Maybe someday you will realize that the path you have chosen is full of wolves.

If you could take it all back, would you?

Maybe you forgot just how powerful a string of words can be. They look only like lines and loops and they fill the air with noise, and in a certain moment, one can forget that they, in fact, beat with life. They reach far beyond rhyme and reason. They pulsate and conjure and capture. When strung together, they can wrap around a heart and complete it or they can go straight to the epicenter where it’s raw and tender and it hurts the most.

Maybe you knew exactly what you were saying and chose each word carefully from your book of thorns. It's impossible to take back your words once they’ve emerged. They pick up speed and gain momentum the moment they pass the lips. They hold so much weight for something so invisible.

Your words will never be forgotten. You can’t just ask for them back and drink them back down your neck. You can’t pretend that they never came out. Things will never be the same. I hope you remember from now on that your words have power. Someday you may need to eat them and they will leave behind a bitter aftertaste. I hope one day new words will re-write some of the old and that at least part of the hurt can be erased. There is only one word now that can break the spell and change the end of this story.

Are you brave enough to say it?