_edited_.png)
By: Tania
Posted on: March 13, 2022
Cover Image: "Smiling Face"
Cover Image Artwork by: Mirai Matsui
Classification: Photography
Year: 2022
“You are looking so good today,” Zelda said as she stepped on the school bus. She had a habit of hyping me up on every little thing but I actually didn’t mind cause it felt nice to hear it. “Thank you” I replied shyly. Zelda was a year older than me but we always sat together on the bus probably because we both had no one else to sit with. After a small chit-chat about school and teachers, the bus stopped and a girl climbed in.
“Hey, Zelda. I missed my bus and this one was just passing by so I grabbed it.” She said. Zelda shifted towards me as she made space for her friend to sit. “D, this is Amara, my classmate,” Zelda said to me. “And Amara this is Diana. She’s in 2nd grade right now. Isn’t she beautiful?” Zelda said to Amara. Amara stared at me as though she would punch me in the face the next moment and whispered to Zelda in the ear, “I think she is kinda ugly.”
Those were the exact words addressed about me 9 years back and I still remember her voice saying it. It’s weird how some words stay in our heads so long after they’ve been said. This wasn’t a really big deal and if someone called me out today, I wouldn’t even care to notice but that was the age when I felt every emotion way too deep. My doctors had said I was born with a different alignment of my lower jaw and that was the reason for my wrong pronunciations and looks. It wasn’t in my hands and someone commenting about it felt gross. It took me months to get over that statement, maybe so long because I was busy pretending half the time that I wasn’t hurt. I found it difficult to look in the mirror and say, “she’s so pretty”. Just because of those six words. Hurting someone by saying the thing they are insecure about is just as easy as throwing a pebble in a sea but have you got any idea how deep it can go?
Every day we wake up and talk to people about a thousand things and we may not even realise that just something said to sound funny and on a light note can affect a person way more than we can ever think of. Saying someone they don’t look their age or how stupid they were might not even seem something to be upset about but you have no right to say that. You don’t know what the other person is going through and one statement said out of place can trigger it all. It’s actually quite astonishing how words can do that, shred your insides apart and you can actually feel it in your chest when something really hurts. The next day you won’t remember you said something rude to someone but that someone could be going through hell because of you. It is just senseless to say something bad when you are temporarily angry because its effect on the other person may be permanent.
You may think, in order to guide someone on the right path and tell them they are going wrong, it is acceptable to use some hard words to make him realise his wrong decisions. IT IS STILL NOT ACCEPTABLE. There is a way to tell someone he’s going wrong without being mean or rude. You just don’t have to go throwing curse words at him saying how dumb he is for not understanding.
Words have the power to create, heal or open wounds of a person, and the role your words play defines you as a person. The tongue is indeed a small thing but what wonders it can do; make a person feel the happiest parts of life or destroy him for the rest of his life. Now if you still think that words uttered don’t matter, you can’t be more wrong because believe me there might be at least a million girls and boys and teenagers and women and men and elders out there going through a lot just because someone said hurtful about the things they are not.