To Be
Expected
Written
January 2004
Insults fly as if they are weightless, floating here
and there like feathers off a sparrow. They lie, as is their nature. They
are heavy, like cement blocks, and they hurt like them, too.
I should know, sitting here, invisible to the world,
watching all that goes on. All the torment, all the torture, I see it all.
It's accepted in this world, expected. Parent and child. Brother and sister.
Friend and friend. No one blinks an eye. No one raises a voice in protest.
No one even notices.
"Why don't we put a bark collar on you? Then maybe
you'd stop all that useless yapping of yours," says a father to his daughter.
The daughter glares, angry, hurt, and turns away. The father smiles. The
mother doesn't say a word, doesn't blink an eye. Doesn't go after her daughter
to reverse her husband's doing. That is their relationship, father and daughter.
It is to be expected.
"What are you doing, looking for a cookbook? You can't
cook. I cook. Dad cooks. Mom cooks. You can't cook, not for your life, a
brother says to his sister. On and on he goes, insults dripping off his tongue.
His sister never turns, never gives him the satisfaction of knowing that
he's hurt her. Her tears are silent, running down her cheeks as she thumbs
through the books. She can't ignore him. Every word slips into her heart,
forcing her to see as he sees. She really can't cook.
"Oh, it's just sibling rivalry," says the aunt, having
heard the story. "Sibling rivalry, and nothing more. It is to be expected."
"C'mon, girl," says friend to friend. "You, a writer?
Not on your life. Not you. Never." He doesn't see the hurt in his friend's
eyes. She takes his words to heart, him her best friend, her lifelong companion.
The bell rings, and he walks away.
She doesn't move. She doesn't get up, ready her things
for the next class. She sits there, a blank expression on her face, contemplating
what he had just said.
"Hey, girl," another friends says softly as she walks
past. "He didn't mean it."
"Right," she says, her voice sad, disbelieving.
"He's just teasing," the friend pushed.
"Right."
"You can be whatever you want to be. You know he likes
to tease. He was teasing now. It is to be expected."
"Right," she whispers, her friend gone, along with
her dreams.
Oh, the agony of it all! The world, accepting insults
as if they were baby's toys rather than deadly weapons! Words are powerful
things. They carry weight, the weight of the world of the past and present.
Nothing matters more than words out of a loved one's mouth. Words that can
either heal or destroy.
It truly is a sorrowful time when destruction is accepted,
normal, an everyday thing that no one pays attention to. When the world
turns a blind eye to the evil. To be expected, indeed!
It's almost too much to watch, what the world has come
to! But no, I must. I must watch, and see what this world comes to, and
hope with all my heart that things change, that things will be better once
again in the world!