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Jack Kelly - Words Like Knives

(TW: Slurs, mentions of R@pe and slight verbal abuse)

One thing I hate about this world is the way words leave scars.

Literally.

The words we say to people can leave deep, ugly scars on their body like knives. The more you mean the word, the bigger the scar.

Every single day, when I walk through my school, I see kids, kids my age, littered with scars of words people said to them.

Girls with 'slut', 'whore', 'bitch", and 'prude' covering their arms and legs.

Boys with 'pussy', 'girl', and 'f*g' on their faces and necks.

People with 'worthless', 'liar', and 'mistake' littering their bodies.

I, personally, have all sorts of words on me.

'Slut' on my lower back in big letters. A small 'whore' on my ankle. 'Attention Seeker' covering my left forearm. 'Prude' on my collar bone. 'Asking for it' on my right thigh. 'Liar' on the back of my neck.

I remember when I got most of them.

I got 'Slut' when I didn't want to change my shirt because my mom said it made me look like a, well, slut.

'Whore' came when I was going to a party with friends and apparently my father didn't like my dress and labeled me, his own daughter, a whore.

'Prude' and 'Asking for it' came the same night, actually the same day as 'Whore'

I guess I should have listened to my father.

Maybe I wouldn't still have nightmares of that senior boy hovering over me.

Of him telling me that in that dress I was 'Asking for it'

Asking for him to violate me? To make me feel dirty? Like it was my fault this happened to me?

No.

I wasn't asking for it. I was 16 trying to have some fun. I was a sophomore, he was a senior.

He kept making advances, I kept turning him down.

He called me a prude. That's where that one came from.

He grabbed my wrist and covered my mouth as he dragged me off to some secluded room, and with the amount of alcohol I'd consumed, I couldn't fight back.

But since he was a senior, the quarterback, and everyone's favorite person, when I tried to report it, all I got was scars reading 'Liar' and 'Attention Seeker'

Sometimes I'm insecure about my scars, but there's one person that always helps me remember that the words that cover me aren't who I am inside.

Jack Kelly.

The love of my life.

The boy who I showed my scars and believed me when I told him what happened at that party.

The boy who has painted over my scars so that instead of seeing 'whore' I see flowers. Instead of 'Attention Seeker' I see a constellation of stars. Instead of 'slut' I see love.

The boy who doesn't let having 'F*G' on his arm in big bold letters make him ashamed of who he is, instead painting the letters pink and purple and blue as a big f-you to the people who hurt him.

The late night conversations with him in my room, when I'll be laying face down on the floor while he uses my back as a canvas, painting over the letters that cover me while he reminds me that he loves me that keep my head above water.

The kisses that make me forget anything bad has ever happened to me, when he runs his hand through my hair and tells me I'm pretty when I feel like nothing I've ever done is right.

When he painted 'Love' across my stomach, bigger than any scar I've got on my body to remind me that his love is stronger than any hateful words anyone can say to me.

The reminders that he will be by my side until the day one of us breathes our last breath.

Because some people's words are like knives.

But some are more like paint brushes, covering our pain with something we like as a reminder that words don't define us.