When you are hurting, there will always be people who find a way to make it about themselves. If you break your wrist, they'll complain about a sprained ankle. If you are sad, they're sadder. If you're asking for help, they'll demand more attention. Here is a fact: I was in hospital and sobbing into my palms when a woman approached me and asked why I was making so much noise and I managed to stutter that my best friend shot himself in the head and now he was 100% certified dead and she made this little grunt and had the never to tell me, "Well now you made me sad." When you get angry, there are going to be people who ask you to shut up and sit down, and they're not going to do it nicely. Theirs are faces that turn bright red before you have a chance to finish your sentence. They won't ask you to explain yourself. They'll be mad that you're mad and that will be their whole reason alone.
Here is a fact: I was in an alleyway a few weeks ago, stroking my friend's back as she vomited fourteen tequila shots. "I hate men," she wheezed as her sides heaved, "I hate all of them"
I braided her hair so it wouldn't get caught in the mess. I didn't correct and reply that she does in fact love her father and her little brother too, that there are strangers she has yet to meet that will be better for her than any of her shitty ex-boyfriends, that half of our group of friends identifies as male- I could hear each of her bruises in those words and I didn't ask her to soften the blow when she was trying to buff them out of her skin. She doesn't hate all men. She never did.
She had the misfortune to be overhead by a drunk guy in an ill-fitting suit, a boy trying to look like a man and leering down my dress as he stormed towards us. "Fuck you, lady" He said, "Fuck you. Not all men are evil, you know"
"Thanks," I told him dryly, pulling on her hand, trying to get her inside again, "See you"
He followed us. Wouldn't stop shouting. How dare she get mad. How dare she was hurting. "It's hard for me too!" he yowled after us. "With fuckers like you, how's a guy supposed to live?"
Here's a fact: my father is Cuban and my genes repeat his. Once one of my teachers.
