A Slam on Words

Growing up, we always hear
silly little rhymes like
"Sticks and stones break my bones, but words will never hurt me."
and, my personal favorite,
"I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you."

But what happens when these words of those rhymes fail?
What happens when the words that "will never hurt me"
twist and turn into nooses,
curl up to fill the bottle of 73 pills,
turn on edge to create the edge of the sharpest knife in the drawer?
What happens when these words of hate
are dismissed as only words
that carry no burden of meaning,
yet they are the invisible fist tightening around our throats,
just tight enough so that we see black spots,
and the words being bounced off the target
we've become sound so far away, but not far enough?

A mother stands at the grave of her child taken far too soon,
while her husband downs another fifth in the car,
vying to feel the burn that stopped burning three days ago.
A left behind brother sets one too many places at the dinner table,
and has to scramble, choking back tears, to destroy the evidence,
because it will only upset the parents he is hoping to see come out of their dark bedroom.

A family, a community, is shattered,
the pieces never quite glued just right,
because something--someone--is missing,
but no one wants to talk about who is missing,
and only want to talk about what happened,
and how to prevent it next time, because,
for some damned reason, we don't act, only react.

So, please, save your breath on those stupid rhymes when raising your child.
Sticks and stones will break our bones,
but bones heal, and casts come off,
and, sure, there's a weird scar,
but those words you say, you write, you type
will always be in the back of my mind,
creeping out to wrap their icy, dead claws around my throat at 3:53 a.m. when I cannot sleep.
And I thank god everyday I have a support system,
but worry every second, of everyday
about those who are too afraid to reach out to theirs,
who feel they are a burden, because all our lives we told them
"words will never you, only the sticks and stones can break your bones."