Scintillation Work #11: "Please"

Scintillation Work 11

Title: Please

Author: Lee Wilhelm

Artist: Lia Guillermo

~

please stop

please don’t talk to me

you’re trying so hard to talk to me 

to interact with me,

to make me forgive you

but i can’t

it’s too hard

no matter how close we are, or how close we used to be,

it doesn’t change the fact that you hurt me.

so. many. times.

you refuse to apologize,

you refuse to admit that you were wrong

when i try to explain myself,

you think i’m talking back to you

you talk over me instead,

blaming my behavior on my friends, on my phones,

when really, it wasn’t those things at all

maybe if you just listened to me.

just maybe.

it’ll all be fine.

you laugh at me when i do something wrong

sometimes it hurts

when i tell you that you’re hurting me,

you get offended.

it’s not fair.

you make rude comments at women’s bodies,

laugh at gay boys,

saying “it’s not proper”

when they’re just being themselves.

and it hurts

it hurts that i can’t stand up for them

because you won’t listen.

you never listen.

you wonder why i rarely talk to you

you wonder why i don’t want to sit down and watch a movie with you

you wonder why i don’t want to confront you about my problems

i wonder why you won’t listen to me.

more often than not you yell at me,

hit me,

then say that you never acted like this when you were young

i’m not even allowed to cry,

just so you can act like everything is normal,

act like everything is fine.

but no.

it’s not fine.

i won’t let you get away with this.

i’ll be waiting for the day

that you admit that you were wrong

that you admit that you hurt me 

that you let me explain myself and my side

before you hurt me again.

please listen to me

please don’t act like everything is fine when it’s clearly not

please stop making up excuses to hurt me

your word is not the law

i don’t have to pretend that everything is okay

because it’s not.

i’ll be waiting.

~

Want your work featured on our website and social media pages? To submit a work, just fill out the form linked here (bit.ly/scintillation-form). Please note that accomplishing this form does not ensure that your work will be featured. All works will be reviewed by the Project Luminescence team prior to posting.