We Used Our Words As Weapons
By Anonymous
We sat across from one another on our worn out leather couch, looking at each other straight in the eyes, from that moment on, I knew we no longer knew one another. We had just completed a twenty two minute screaming match. We used our words as weapons and we had exchanged the most vicious, inhumane and coldest words to one another. I believe after you have been with someone for what feels like decades, you know exactly what to say in order to truly hurt them, harm them so deeply, you have now opened back up another once, closed wound.
Internally damaging one another seemed so well-known. It was a form of treatment we thought the two of us deserved, but in actuality, neither of us had deserved to take a pinch of salt and rub it into each others open wounds. For those few seconds, after exchanging the most hurtful words to one another, we were experiencing the most indescribable, excruciating, and agonizing pain.
In between the process of pointing the finger at one another, screaming until we couldn’t speak another coherent word, we felt a sense of entitlement. A sense of power. And for those twenty two prolonged minutes, we knew our relationship would never be the same.
Why do we feel so comfortable hurting the ones who are closest to us? Is it because we feel a sense of security or because we feel as if we have a right? Or is it a little bit of both? Maybe we will never know why we feel no shame in the moments of internally damaging our loved ones, but in those twenty two minutes, we had done exactly so.
I watched you as you saw the tears flowing down my face. I know you well enough to know that you wanted to apologize and justify the very last comment you had made to me. I know you were longing to take me into your arms and whisper in your apologetic tone of voice that it was out of pure anger. The way you would always glance up at the ceiling trying to find the right words to comfort me, for some unusual reason this time, you could not find not one word to confirm that you still had loved me.
A part of me had sincerely felt as if I did not deserve any of those normal gestures of yours, grabbing me in, apologizing and reassuring me that you loved me. However, you admitting that you had cheated on me, I clearly did not deserve. No one does.
For the first time in my entire years of existence, I had felt as if I was out of my body. I felt as if my heart had disappeared in those twenty two minutes, it had left my chest and went running. Where? Somewhere so far from the stranger that was still standing in front of me. I was standing in our kitchen feeling lifeless, empty, weak and feeling as if I was being punished by you. I stood there in front of you trembling, my knees felt as if they could no longer carry the excess weight of the immediate pain you had just caused me, my hands felt numb, my eyes could not stay open. I felt dead. For that, I knew that I would never feel the same about you, ever.
I looked at you with the little sight I had left and I felt ashamed of once trusting your true intentions. I watched you as you threw your head down and looked blankly at the tile floor, but in that instant, I could not fathom the mere fact that you had shared a part of yourself with another human being. The promises you had promised me over the course of our relationship were broken, and one thing you had taught me, you can never repair a broken promise.
It was when we exchanged glares on our couch that I had seen the misery that had filled your heart. I thought that committing myself to you, providing you with unconditional love, emotional assistance and someone who tried with all of their might to understand your pains, I could actually rescue you. However, I have learned so much from those last string of words in that twenty two minute argument, you can never recover anyone, no matter how hard you try. Saving another human being from life’s misery and pains is utterly unachievable. Nevertheless, I apologize for attempting to do so.
For having the mindset that I could free you away from all of your hurt and I had the capabilities to defend your heart and soul from any unwanted emotions that would sneak into your body as you would wrap your arms around me at night. A part of me felt helpless, knowing that I knew you were mentally and emotionally hurting before I intruded into your life, but for that, I pity you for using your hurt as your one and only defense for your cheating.
Those twenty two minutes had changed our lives forever. Some part of me, deep down in my core still longs for those twenty-two minutes back, but if I had gained those minutes back, I would of never known the true individual you really are.