The Bathroom Wall

The Bathroom Wall by Mo Juenger
There are stories all around me
untold stories
that we've all heard.
Scratched in,
forbidden but still there,
with bloodred pens
on dented tin blue stall doors.
Oh, yes,
the words echo all around her as she cries,
silently so that no one comes to hurt her one more time.
She looks around,
barely wanting to,
sees her name in the messages
and she knows they know she sees.
The words are like daggers and they have carved messages into our minds, and our bodies.
Oh, she’s not blind.
Everybody's talking,
and they won't stop the hate they emanate.
They tell stories,
scrawl the hatred
that they hold within.
Misdirected hatred
because they're
insecure
or bullied
or their parents are
divorced
or alcoholic
or abusive.
But sometimes she don't care.
Some days,
some very painful days,
she don't really care why they hate me.
she just hates
that she hates
that they hate
anything she loves.
Because some terrible days
it is all just too much hate.
Even though they all have a story to tell,
they all have a hateful little story to keep.
They'll make a deal with her,
a secret for a secret.
A deal that they only keep the hardened half-way.
A story for a story,
no,
they won't tell you theirs.
But her secrets,
they are all smeared across the stall doors and walls
in marker and pen and pencil
now, because she has said too much.
We all have secrets,
it is a sacred part of us.
But some of us have been hurt.
Some of us are missing our secrecy.
Those hurt
and pained
and abused
people who hurt
and pain
and abuse her.
They tear the little secrets out of her,
ripping them from her soul
while the blood of her own dark
guilt and embarassment and love
just spills like anything but wine.
And they take one more virtue:
her dignity.
So she finds herself bare,
naked of any value
while those who have taken her faults
and filled themselves with her empty imperfections
just so they can say to have it,
they use the blood she has shed to paste her
secrets,
dirty secrets
on the wall.
And the words on the hollow tin doors,
they hurt,
because they are
true.
Everyone sees the words,
and they must ask her,
Is it true?
and she must deny what she knows is real.
It is not invisible to the ones who are supposed to stop it,
but they nearly ignore the overall sins.
They look through the rules,
and put it in the files
and call the parents
so that the horrible children
who are still undeserving of this,
can both just get beaten for one more
bruise or broken bone.
Because the teachers at the
School of Hate
think they know it all,
think that this girl is safe now.
Yes, they have stopped one crime
but started two more.
And even though
one victory
and two losses
have been so clearly obvious
that they are hidden,
the words on the wall have been
scrubbed off by a man who is used to the
hate.
And for a day,
they all feel grateful
because maybe,
just maybe,
the memories
will all just fade away
into the darkness from which they came
and will forever stay engulfed in.
And then tomorrow
the words are back.
A girl
who cuts herself
because her mom tells her that
she hates her
because she's dumb
cries in the bathroom
where she hides from the rest of
society,
and the tears flood
the whole wide world.
And she turns around,
and she knows the door was cleaned yesterday
by the man with the denim jacket.
But what she doesn't know
is that the girl with the
press-on nails were in here yesterday,
and they scraped through the paint with their hate.
Why don't you just
switch schools,
or disappear,
or die?
it asks her,
the girls who wrote that
don't know how often
the girl who cuts just wants to.
And the girl stares down at her wrist,
and she decides.
Now they'll be satisfied,
and she makes the cut.
Dreams gone,
wishes gone.
She goes quickly.
And somewhere deep in the fiery flames of all versions of hatred,
the girls with press-on nails
guiltily pretend to cry at the other girls funeral.
Sitting two rows ahead of them,
is the janitor with the denim jacket
the father of the girl in the casket.