They Can't Hurt You If You Don't Let Them

Response to prompt: "Why do you write?"

Why do I write? 

So many options. 

What am I supposed to say? 

I write for so many reasons, that it’s almost impossible to pick apart the separate motivations for my love of word-craft. 

But, I suppose, the main reason is because of my emotions. 

I write to stave away the demons that creep in when I’m not paying enough attention, when I let my fragile walls that surround my heart down. 

Because when I start to get comfortable, something always will happen. 




Someone will raise their voice. 

Someone will joke about disabilities. 

Someone will joke about suicide. 

Someone will talk about how my classmates are lying about their depression, just to get attention. 

Someone will say that a classmate is lying about their home life, pretending it is bad, just for popularity. 

My vision gets blurry. 

My head pounds. 

My face flushes. 

My ears ring. 

My hands clench. 

The familiar heavy brick settles on my chest. 

I can’t breath. 

Start to hyperventilate. 

Start to shake. 

Start to get dizzy. 

Can’tbreathcan’tbreathcan’tbreathcan’tbret- 




They don’t understand. 




I’ve been through s**t. 




I’ve been to HELL and back. 




They don’t know. 




Every smile of mine, 

Every good deed for someone else, 

Every day I go without lunch, 

Every day I spend at the counselors office, 

Every time my response to “How are you?” is a tired “I’m alive, so that’s something”, 

Every time I pretend to not hear people ridiculing others, 

Every time I look numb, 

Every time I don’t come to school because I can’t bring myself to get out of bed (but they will never know that), 

Every time I have not slept for over 24 hours (because I spent the night online talking to my only friends that I will never meet, or writing my thoughts down in my notepad, but they don’t know that), 

Every time I come to school, and look at the floor instead of talk (because my mom woke me up with screams, saying I’m not good enough), 

Every time I look sad or frightened when asked about my family (that time when my mom slapped me in the face at age nine and locked me in the bathroom for having an anxiety attack, or that time last november when my dad threw me off the sofa, dug his nails into my wrist and screamed the everloving daylights into my face for not getting off the sofa, [still have small scar from that] keep running through my mind) 

Every single twitch, smile, shake, laugh, is a call for help. 




But no one can hear. 




Cause they don’t notice. 




I pretend I’m fine. 




But I’m not. 




I write to feed the demons, at least for a while longer. 

To satisfy their need. 

And really, it’s my only way of expressing emotion. 

Cause, in case you have not guessed, I don’t talk about my problems all that much. 




So I write, to let out all my pent up emotions and sadness. 

And without my emotions screaming to get out as strongly as they usually are, I strengthen the mask I show the world. 




So why do I write? 





To strengthen my mask. 





To build up my walls. 





They can’t hurt you if you don’t let them.

Author's Note

So yeah. This was a recent entry for a contest. Been a while since I was active on here, and not much has changed. Glad to see you're all still writing!