‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’
That was my mother’s mantra. It’s what she said to me time after time.
When I would run home from school in tears. From the playground. From anywhere. Everywhere.
I would tell her what they had said about me, though sobs and snot.
Always the same answer.
‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’
It didn’t helped. I used to think that was my fault, probably because she told me so.
She told me so often.
I know now that she was wrong, like she was about most things.
Bruises heal, broken bones knit themselves back together.
And all in good time. You can watched the bruise turn from purple to yellow to nothing at all.
A kindly doctor will tell you when the cast can come off.
Who can tell you when a broken psyche will be all better?
The bruises don’t heal, the break doesn’t mend.
Words hurt, they hurt most of all.
‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’
Who came up with that expression?
Some idiot I guess.
Image by Elias Sch. from Pixabay