Torment

I don’t think you understand the real meaning of the word torment. You see, this word represents the people that are pushed to the ground. This word encompasses their pain and gives it a reality. This word is the bullet to the gun. And finally, when the last barrier breaks down, and the need to break free of the life you’re binding them to becomes a carnal need; a need every man and woman has within them: survival. You can’t help but wonder why they picked up the gun, why they chose to shoot. You see, the truth is…they couldn’t have done it without you. You people that destroy their pride, watch as the circle of hatred and dominance make its way around and around, again and again. They’ve always had the gun, you just gave them the bullets.

It is the weakness they are forced to bear everyday, and the life they let fall apart. And once it’s all gone, the crumbling pieces of their lives lay like a soggy cookie at their feet. This torment that you can’t feel, is not something you can just push aside like dirty laundry. They can’t help but think, ‘it’s all my fault, I let this happen.’ It is the feeling of drowning in bathwater; you can’t feel the pain until you can’t breathe, until you can’t take it. It is the realization that you’re not good enough for them, you’re not good enough to be normal. And after they are done destroying themselves in chlorine-scented pools of self-hatred they think that maybe they have chance, a possibility of being…normal. But they are knocked down again and again.

They bury their heads in shame-colored dirt so no one has to see their face. They sit in the back row with a hood over their head, eyes cast down so no one has to see them cry. They hide in the school bathroom during gym so no one has to pick them for their team, so no one is obligated to help them. They claw at their heart, with soil-stained nails begging for it to stop, so they don’t have to feel anything anymore. So they don’t have to feel the pain of existing, the suffering of needing to be accepted. And the rejection that they see in the eyes of everyone everyday they try.

Not anymore.