You said you weren’t hurting anyone, but you hurt us.
You said you weren’t hurting anyone, but you hurt us. You said you could do what you wanted with your body, but then we had to pick you up.
Are we not people, too? Why don’t we count? Why am I a background character? Why do I only matter when you need something?
You said you weren’t hurting anyone, but you hurt me. You said you weren’t hurting anyone, but you hurt yourself. They had to remove pieces of you, remove the damaged parts and leave the parts that still worked.
You said you weren’t hurting anyone, and thank god you didn’t. Your arrest records are an encyclopedia of rolling the dice. There are dozens of potential timelines stemming from those mistakes, all of them painful for someone.
You said you weren’t hurting anyone, and it made me feel like I didn’t matter. It made me feel like you didn’t think you mattered. It weighed on my soul. It lowered your own standard of living — the dirty clothes, the soiled floor. You thought you were nothing and you treated yourself like nothing.
You said you weren’t hurting anyone, but you did. And it’s good that your actions hurt us, hurt you. Because it meant that what you did mattered and what you did happened. It’s good because bad things are supposed to hurt.
You said you weren’t hurting anyone, but denying the pain didn’t make it go away. You just left it for us to carry, to break apart, to scrub, to paint over, to digest.
We say you hurt someone. But we’re not mad at you. We never were.
We say you hurt someone, and we mean it in the best way possible.
We mean it, because you did matter. It counted. It meant something.
We will make it mean something good.
