Lonely Greys

Kindergarten

Everyone says people become more mature and more kind as they grow older

Everyone says little kids are cruel and harsh, as they don't know any better

However, I disagree

As people grow up, sure their bodies grow and their minds expand,

But their empathy vanishes and their hearts dwindle

Because

The high school boys who make jeering comments to self conscious girls

Could be lectured by kindergarten children about kindness and sensitivity for hours

The high school boys who rate a girl's self worth based on her body

Could be lectured by kindergarten children about respect and character for weeks

The high school boys who express their affection for girls through insults and aggression and abuse

Could be lectured by kindergarten children about love and compassion for years

Because

I will never forget the time

A kindergarten boy shyly complimented my dress

And I will never forget the time

He gave me the smencil he bought from the school store

Because I was the only kid in the class who didn't have one of those sweet smelling pencils

Where did this innocence go?

High school boys don't know how to express their feelings for fear of damaging their "masculinity"

I call it cowardice

They break the crumbling confidence of girls who are desperately trying to discover themselves in their peak of anxiety and insecurity

Their hands are stained red with the blood of the wounds they inflicted upon these girls

High school is their hunting ground

Each time they kill a girl with their harsh words and harmful perception of love

They make another notch on their gun

A gun they show off to their friends

A testimony of their masculinity and power

They sacrifice the happiness and health of girls to inflate their insatiable ego

The difference between the kindness of the kindergarten boy and the disrespect of the high school boy who broke my best friend

Is like night and day

And the night feels like a suffocating whirlpool that sucks in any hope I had that high school boys still possess their kindergarten hearts

I realize that those hearts are gone

Only do I I get a glimpse of stars in the suffocating night by remembering the kindness of the kindergarten boy

Only do I feel a beam of sunshine in the engulfing dark by witnessing the purity of my little cousin

Maybe one day these high schools boys will have their hearts healed

Maybe the gaps in their hearts that cause all of their love and compassion to leak out will be stitched together by the love of someone else

But even if they are healed, there will forever remain scars on their tainted hearts

Scars that embody the cruelty and ignorance of their actions

Scars that reflect the damage and pain they inflicted upon high school girls

Scars that they will have to cope with for the rest of their lives.

Was the toxic masculinity that you prided yourself in during high school really worth it?

You permanently damaged the ability of high school girls to trust and love

You permanently destroyed their self esteem and sense of worth

The toxic and hateful love you gave them is the love they think they deserve

I want to go back to kindergarten