Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Sensitive Child...

Every report card...mixed in the with the B's and C's like little mouse turds. Your child is "sensitive". Man, I knew cussing. Fuck. Shit. Butthole. That had to have been the worst word I knew. Sensitive. It made my dad's eyes dark and it radiated shame. It made my mom hug me and tell me it was a good thing which always meant it was a bad thing. Shit.

In my room. Playing with my knives. I was strong. I was fast. I always won. Except at fighting. Oh, I won. But damn, I couldn't do it and not end up crying. Being angry always made me cry. On the inside, the anger was a deranged fucking cyclone, but on the outside, I cried. I yelled and demanded justice and ended up crying. That's how I learned what a faggot was. But I wasn't one.

Scared. Big sisters and brothers do such horrible things. They do it and then it is done and it all seems right, but twenty years later you think back and think, 'holy shit, did she know?!?'. Did she know what she was doing.  It wasn't fun and games.  Not a bit.

And the fucking predators. They see it like a wolf sees a wounded rabbit. Fuckers.

Hit me. Just fucking hit me. Don't yell at me. If you touch me, make it HURT! You can hit me all you want, stop fucking yelling!

Lay on the bed, mind of cold, dripping fire. Sensitive child. Fuck you. Fuck you, school counselor. Fuck you, condescending teacher. Fuck you, speech therapist. 'Talk more, you have such a good vocabulary". Fuck you; I stutter. Leave me alone. Just leave me the fuck alone, so I can disappear.

Sports. Bikes. Guns. Fire. No need to talk. Fucking A. Let's go. Music, pure emotion, but it works. Whiskey, tastes like shit, makes everything black. More. Drugs. Fuck it.

Hate. Ahhh, finally. The antidote. I don't give a fuck! That's it!  I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.

The years pass in blurry old slide-show frames, and the sensitive child twists his brain and speeds his heart up, slows it down, wakes up dirty and bleeding. Hides in corners clinging to cigarette life rafts. I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.

Birds were the only thing I could ever count on. No one cared if they were sensitive. They were free to soar and dive. God, how I wanted to be a bird. So, the years passed like stop motion photography. Slomps and glamps of stuttering images. Until the crescendo. The sensitive child was not dead, only sleeping, and woke up on the wrong goddamn side of the bed. Emergency rooms. White-light-cleaner-smell and doctors and take this pill and come to this group and you know I'm not gonna fucking do it. Maybe the pills. Depends on what they do.

The sensitive child. Man, how I tried to kill that son of a bitch...but I never did.

I see them everywhere now. I want to tell them it will be OK. There is room in the adult world for the "sensitive child". It is a blessing. You don't want to be rock. You don't want to yell. You don't want to hurt people and be a frat boy asshole. You want love and learning and books and art and THERE ARE OTHERS. Just wait. Be brave and strong and don't let them get inside you. Because they will try. And you will lose so much.

All the years. And no one really told me. No one showed me. God, I wish they would have.

Addendum courtesy of one of my favorite Canadians.  No pity sought or required.  Pity the INsensitive children.

12 comments:

  1. Well ouch -
    I am the oldest of nine children - and brothers who are all a lot younger than I am. Am I sensitive? Not really. Are they? ONE OR TWO.

    I was more shy than sensitive lol. Also, the dog, Mitzi, was my hold on the real world. I could tell you horror stories. Fortunately, I just write horror fiction. It is much easier to write than the dreams, and the rubber hoses, and the work. Hell on earth.

    No I am not sensitive.

    Cyn

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    1. Maybe not, but I appreciate the comment and your stopping by.

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  2. Damn JD, when you cut into the flesh why do you always have to show us how white the bone is? Those of us labelled sensitive children should wear it as a badge of honour that we got through it with at least some of our spirit intact. Luckily some of us were sensitive "enough" to be able to hold onto our souls with our wiry, sometimes broken, little fingers.

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    1. Very well put. And there is only one truth. Watered down ain't my style. Cut to the bone and tendons, yep.

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  3. Another stunning post...I'm not sure how to respond. I was the homely child, intelligent and caring...I got into trouble for finishing my work quickly so I could then walk around and help everyone else in class (from grade 1-5 I got into trouble for "helping" too much). Glasses, dark circles, buck teeth, bad hair...I had it all. I'll never forget two from the "inner" circle that still friended me.

    Egad, I need to stop now...my 50th HS reunion is only a couple of years away. Making me maudlin....

    You, my friend, ROCK!!! (...but I HATE your word verification...takes me several tries to type the right thing. LOL!)

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  4. Thanks Donna. ;) I hate it, too. I have to do it to comment on MY blog and it's like trying to make a sandwich on acid every time.

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  5. Sensitive children grow into adults that love freely and with all their heart. Perhaps some of us grow up a little eccentric too :)

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  6. Life would be so much better if once someone said to a sensitive child, "Thank you. You will be the world's salvation."

    Thank you, JD...

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  7. You are an amazing writer. I want to send this post to every person who ever told me "You care too much." They don't care enough.

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    1. Thank you very much. Feel free to pass it along.

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