I harmed myself today when I woke up and hit my shin on the bedpost as I was reaching for my towel. Whoever thought to make bedpost stick out like they is a masochist and should be fed to the wolves. Besides that, I would say I am impervious to harm. Yeah.
I thought I already wrote about this word. I’ve broken one word. Maybe it’s just one word now, forever, like “harm” is The One Word I Get To Write About From Now On. Did I break oneword? I mean, if I only GET one word for the rest of time, this one’s not bad. Easy to rhyme. Pleasant to say. Emotional resonance. Etcetera. Harm. Chicken Parm.
Over months that became years, Madel and her brother came to understand more clearly the misery that had befallen their town. The damage was irreparable and sharp, and rendered hopes of rebuilding nearly obsolete. Theirs was a story of desolation and catastrophe, and it was merely a testament to their collective spirit that they were able to dream of healing.
The first time I felt a genuine pain was when I broke my arm. I was six years old and I did not have the capacity to understand what was happening to me- there was a snap, a crack, and then a bright hot blindness that overtook the sun and the grass and all memories. There was only the pain, all consuming. It was almost beautiful.
The desks were bare in eerie silence. She sat in poster-perfect posture, hands gently overlapped on the light-brown surface. She felt as still as the air. Is this what desperate powerlessness feels like?
She was screaming, clawing, and yet it was a smaller her, inside, banging against her flesh like walls.
That must be my soul, she thought.
Maybe it was stupid. It probably was. Really thinking about things wasn’t a feat she ever particularly excelled at. It made sense, maybe, on the surface, and while she knew there usually was a catch underneath, she never had the insight to reveal it.
And this seemed like the place to do it.
It wasn’t too long ago, a season or two, she had caught him brooding, looking out over the veranda, into one of those things she just didn’t have the eyes for. But she could hear it, like a storm, rumbling in the air around him, ‘it would be better if I dis—‘
And maybe she felt a little like she did now, where something started instinctively thrashing inside her, but she had wrapped her scarf around him from behind and pulled his gaze away with a start. She smiled, but that wouldn’t be enough forever—but he softened then, and that was what mattered, what she could do.
Outside the classroom window, thunder rumbled in the distance.
Did she want to run away? To not have to be here to see the devastating events she discovered be carried through?
Could this, in anyway help, or was she just a coward?
Unblinking, the only thing moving was two trails of saltwater down her cheeks. Outside the door, her last goodbye walked away, unwilling to apologize just yet—after all, there’s always tomorrow. Those words would sing him every day he’d sit next to a vase of withering flowers. There’s always tomorrow.
I have to try—thinking the words to pull her out of her seat. Something deep inside was telling her it was a mistake. But what option was left that wasn’t?
Stepping out onto the veranda, the air was alive again, the wind carrying away the last hints of fall, the thunder drawing closer, overhead. Her large scarf soaked up her cold sweat, chilling her further. She slid her hands over the rail.
A failed test.
A crying sibling.
A brushed- off hand.
Black-mirror screen.
A smile, a secret, a lie, a game, a plan, a group, a family, red eyes, a hero,
Tomorrow.
harm is something that can be inflicted by anyone or anything, people can cause harm, as can animals and inanimate objects. harm can also be done by ones self. Harm can be more than just physical harm it could also be mental harm.
It does more harm than good to tell a white lie. For the thief of time is the worst thief of all. A white lie suffocates the truth and smothers it with tantalizing and soft down-feather blankets. If you do not seek to harm the person, you should not distort their perception of reality with a lie so white, it’s blinding.
Safe from harm, the beveled turn-of-the-century windows dark, every naphtha lamp turned on, songstresses crooning in the background until our conversation takes precedence. I could talk to you all night, every night.
Sam’s hands had harmed so many people, too many. She thought about it when she drank her coffee in the morning, when she turned the key of her car. She tried to say all their names before she could see the bottom of the mug, before the windshield defrosted.
But they told her she couldn’t do that anymore. They told her to not let the past pull her down and so now she drank her coffee and pet her dog. She pet her dog with her hands–the ones that had harmed too many people. But she didn’t think about that.
They told her that thinking about all the people her hands had harmed was toxic. They said it was going to make her sick, they said they were making her sick. They said the people her hands had harmed were sick, toxic. They were no good and she didn’t need them–not if they were going to make her hands sick, not if they were going to harm her back.
She said that she had to imagine her hands were clean again, had never even touched those toxic, harmful people. She said she felt much better this way, with her dog and her perfect hands. She said that she waited for the windshield to defrost and her mind was crisp, clean, empty, unharmed.
There are so many ways to harm. To move is to harm the molecules in the air, even. I don’t know. You can harm by not doing anything at all, the harm of inaction. Is there a way to exist without harming yourself or others? Could we trace all the harm back and back and back until we think we know how to avoid it?
I don’t know, but hey–let’s try. Let’s pull out the history books, our baby books; let’s pretend we could undo all of this harm if only this were different, if only that were different. If only the person did this thing, if only that sperm met the egg and not this one, if only the wind didn’t blow east, if only the parts of the atom didn’t work like that.
I don’t want to harm your chances of survival, so I won’t go there.
I never meant any harm. All I wanted was to keep them away from me. To keep them from harming me. I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t want any of this to happen. You believe me, don’t you?
You didn’t want to harm him. Everyone thinks you did, though. But really, it was an accident. Really, it happened too fast. You arm came up swinging, straight for his nose. And, in a way, you really meant to harm all of them–for laughing, for rubbing your face into the mud. But the fist hit him, Billy. But also, in a way, you only meant to harm yourself–for having such a puny body, small effeminate wrists. Thought if you could just show yourself what it meant to be a boy, a body, a buoy–afloat.
It is jarring to be told just how harmful you are to someone. Especially someone that you would never want to harm. Realizing that the more you fall in love with them the more you harm them, and then all at once realizing that the fire inside you that burned for them had actually been literally burning them and the only thing they want is for you stop hurting them.
Even more jarring is realizing that the fire you thought they had burning for you in return was actually a candle, and all the warmth you felt around them was actually coming from you instead of from them.
If you truly care for them what should you do? Let the fire continue to grow, or drown the fire in the tears you shed letting them go?
I wish she could understand how much of me she has consumed without realizing it, and at least appreciate at the end that it was my warmth that kept us comfortable in our relationship and not hers. I just never meant to hurt her so much. My body only feels cold now, as I desperately try to stamp out a fire that has raged for so long.
“What’s the harm?”
“The harm is that now he expects something out of it.”
“Oh, he does not.”
“Don’t be naive.”
“I’m not being… I just think he’s different than that.”
“He’s not.”
There is no escaping harm altogether. People harm others even when they have the best of intentions. Sometimes, the people who harm us the most are also the people who build us up the most. Some actions are clearly harmful. Others are clearly helpful. But it becomes more complicated when an action is harmful and beneficial at the same time. It is impossible to say with absolute certainty that an action was entirely good or entirely bad. It also can vary depending on timing. One single action can be harmful to a person in their future but beneficial to them in the present, or vice versa. There is harm everywhere. People can dodge it, create it, attempt to prevent it, absorb it, ignore it, fear it, accept it, become it…… Every single day is an adventure to see how you will respond to the harm that comes at you- no matter how big or small, conscious or unconscious.
The fire in your eyes dances on —-
following along with every step I take.
Towards you?
That’s what I want but my wandering carries me off to distant lands. My hand, my hand – it reaches back for what it cannot have. It reaches out for what will not reach back but watches on and subtly reacts.
“What harm could come of it?”, asked Landon. “Well, how could we even know, really? When an opportunity comes for discovery, you simply have to take calculated risks. And when you’re on the brink of discovery in a new frontier in a place no one has ever been, you can’t calculate risk. Sometimes you have to take that leap of faith in the name of seeking knowledge and sating curiosity, if even just for the briefest moment.”
Harm. Harm is when someone gets hurt. Harm is sometimes when an animal or person gets hurt. People can prevent harm if it happens over and over to them by calling the cops. Harm is a very bad thing. Harm can be minor or major. Don’t let harm take you down.
It’s tempting to harm you for the sake of punishment. It feels impossible to punish you for the hurt I feel, because no amount of breaking your glasses on your face or drowning you in my bathtub will equal the pain you put me through over the last two weeks.
I harm myself. I harm myself subconsciously. It’s how I operate. By extension, I harm others. I don’t mean to. It’s just how I relate to myself. I don’t know how to stop.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me.
What a lie. I’ve felt a word slice home like a well-honed blade, aimed and hurled by one you could only call a warrior. Like a stone thrown. And if it makes a wound you can’t quite see? How to heal that? How to set the deepest bone so broken?
pain.
I’m in pain.
I’m not doing well.
I don’t want to come to point where I’m losing it.
Drowning like a fish with no tail.
Falling like a bird with no wings.
Lost.
I need help.
I. I. I am selfish.
I’m always lost, but today, I don’t think I’m gonna find my way back.
cut crafty construction
concepts dejected
creativity connected
is there more wonderment
than in wondering
wishing
wracking
the brain
to harm oneself
to remember
what brought oneself
here in the first place
Please, love, I don’t want to cause you any harm; just drop the broken bottle, where you sucked away the remains of your father’s soul, and no one will be hurt. See, I’m armed with silver and brass – the breastplate beneath my shirt repels every single touch. I miss feeling your skin against mine, though, before it started to burn.
I don’t want to see you injured, or worse, killed, my love – but we are running out of time.
College life can be pretty harmful. The stress of exams and social pressures make college pretty stressful. I know a couple of people who were on the brink of suicide because of finals, and that’s not ok.
Overbearing parents who care way too much about grades and not enough about mental health make college way worse.
What is it to harm? to degrade, questionable intent leads to discussion unfounded in reality. I have a bit going on: it’s tough when your accused of actions not intended at the premise of misreprenting yourself. Girls, girls, girl; what goes on tour stays on tour.
a caduceus, interwoven snakes
on a staff resembling a uterus,
center of birth and pillowroom
with walls of decadent drapery
red and waiting to be ripped,
waiting for the inevitable
tear or stretch
or stitch.
One day I was walking down the road on a foggy night and all of a sudden a person ran up to me and pointed his spoon at me and told me this is a robbery and to give hum all my food, and I said NO PLEASE don’t harm me I have no food only money here take my money and there he went and harmed me with his spoon and ran away. When the food police came and intervened it was to late the spoon bandit had already fleed.
One day I was walking down the road on a foggy night and all of a sudden a person ran up to me and pointed his spoon at me and told me this is a robbery and to give hum all my food, and I said NO PLEASE don’t harm me I have no food only money here take my money and there he went and harmed me with his spoon.
I harmed myself today when I woke up and hit my shin on the bedpost as I was reaching for my towel. Whoever thought to make bedpost stick out like they is a masochist and should be fed to the wolves. Besides that, I would say I am impervious to harm. Yeah.
Your mind is like a software,
it can be programmed,
you the creator,
that seeks no harm,
no foul,
only meek smiles,
and aware eyes of an owl.
Joyance is up to the puppet–
not the puppeteer.
I thought I already wrote about this word. I’ve broken one word. Maybe it’s just one word now, forever, like “harm” is The One Word I Get To Write About From Now On. Did I break oneword? I mean, if I only GET one word for the rest of time, this one’s not bad. Easy to rhyme. Pleasant to say. Emotional resonance. Etcetera. Harm. Chicken Parm.
Over months that became years, Madel and her brother came to understand more clearly the misery that had befallen their town. The damage was irreparable and sharp, and rendered hopes of rebuilding nearly obsolete. Theirs was a story of desolation and catastrophe, and it was merely a testament to their collective spirit that they were able to dream of healing.
The first time I felt a genuine pain was when I broke my arm. I was six years old and I did not have the capacity to understand what was happening to me- there was a snap, a crack, and then a bright hot blindness that overtook the sun and the grass and all memories. There was only the pain, all consuming. It was almost beautiful.
The desks were bare in eerie silence. She sat in poster-perfect posture, hands gently overlapped on the light-brown surface. She felt as still as the air. Is this what desperate powerlessness feels like?
She was screaming, clawing, and yet it was a smaller her, inside, banging against her flesh like walls.
That must be my soul, she thought.
Maybe it was stupid. It probably was. Really thinking about things wasn’t a feat she ever particularly excelled at. It made sense, maybe, on the surface, and while she knew there usually was a catch underneath, she never had the insight to reveal it.
And this seemed like the place to do it.
It wasn’t too long ago, a season or two, she had caught him brooding, looking out over the veranda, into one of those things she just didn’t have the eyes for. But she could hear it, like a storm, rumbling in the air around him, ‘it would be better if I dis—‘
And maybe she felt a little like she did now, where something started instinctively thrashing inside her, but she had wrapped her scarf around him from behind and pulled his gaze away with a start. She smiled, but that wouldn’t be enough forever—but he softened then, and that was what mattered, what she could do.
Outside the classroom window, thunder rumbled in the distance.
Did she want to run away? To not have to be here to see the devastating events she discovered be carried through?
Could this, in anyway help, or was she just a coward?
Unblinking, the only thing moving was two trails of saltwater down her cheeks. Outside the door, her last goodbye walked away, unwilling to apologize just yet—after all, there’s always tomorrow. Those words would sing him every day he’d sit next to a vase of withering flowers. There’s always tomorrow.
I have to try—thinking the words to pull her out of her seat. Something deep inside was telling her it was a mistake. But what option was left that wasn’t?
Stepping out onto the veranda, the air was alive again, the wind carrying away the last hints of fall, the thunder drawing closer, overhead. Her large scarf soaked up her cold sweat, chilling her further. She slid her hands over the rail.
A failed test.
A crying sibling.
A brushed- off hand.
Black-mirror screen.
A smile, a secret, a lie, a game, a plan, a group, a family, red eyes, a hero,
Tomorrow.
I’m sorry, I loved you so.
harm is something that can be inflicted by anyone or anything, people can cause harm, as can animals and inanimate objects. harm can also be done by ones self. Harm can be more than just physical harm it could also be mental harm.
danger hurt pain attack violence vigilante cuts sword weapon alert panic court dangerous painful scared fear afraid hurtful bully attacker visible
It does more harm than good to tell a white lie. For the thief of time is the worst thief of all. A white lie suffocates the truth and smothers it with tantalizing and soft down-feather blankets. If you do not seek to harm the person, you should not distort their perception of reality with a lie so white, it’s blinding.
Safe from harm, the beveled turn-of-the-century windows dark, every naphtha lamp turned on, songstresses crooning in the background until our conversation takes precedence. I could talk to you all night, every night.
“No harm will come to you, just do as I say.”
“This isn’t as bad as it could be, no harm done.”
“There’s no harm in just one more…”
“Trust me, I won’t harm you.”
You’re all lying. You’re always lying.
Sam’s hands had harmed so many people, too many. She thought about it when she drank her coffee in the morning, when she turned the key of her car. She tried to say all their names before she could see the bottom of the mug, before the windshield defrosted.
But they told her she couldn’t do that anymore. They told her to not let the past pull her down and so now she drank her coffee and pet her dog. She pet her dog with her hands–the ones that had harmed too many people. But she didn’t think about that.
They told her that thinking about all the people her hands had harmed was toxic. They said it was going to make her sick, they said they were making her sick. They said the people her hands had harmed were sick, toxic. They were no good and she didn’t need them–not if they were going to make her hands sick, not if they were going to harm her back.
She said that she had to imagine her hands were clean again, had never even touched those toxic, harmful people. She said she felt much better this way, with her dog and her perfect hands. She said that she waited for the windshield to defrost and her mind was crisp, clean, empty, unharmed.
There are so many ways to harm. To move is to harm the molecules in the air, even. I don’t know. You can harm by not doing anything at all, the harm of inaction. Is there a way to exist without harming yourself or others? Could we trace all the harm back and back and back until we think we know how to avoid it?
I don’t know, but hey–let’s try. Let’s pull out the history books, our baby books; let’s pretend we could undo all of this harm if only this were different, if only that were different. If only the person did this thing, if only that sperm met the egg and not this one, if only the wind didn’t blow east, if only the parts of the atom didn’t work like that.
I don’t want to harm your chances of survival, so I won’t go there.
We won’t go there. We’ll stay right here, inside.
I never meant any harm. All I wanted was to keep them away from me. To keep them from harming me. I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t want any of this to happen. You believe me, don’t you?
You didn’t want to harm him. Everyone thinks you did, though. But really, it was an accident. Really, it happened too fast. You arm came up swinging, straight for his nose. And, in a way, you really meant to harm all of them–for laughing, for rubbing your face into the mud. But the fist hit him, Billy. But also, in a way, you only meant to harm yourself–for having such a puny body, small effeminate wrists. Thought if you could just show yourself what it meant to be a boy, a body, a buoy–afloat.
It is jarring to be told just how harmful you are to someone. Especially someone that you would never want to harm. Realizing that the more you fall in love with them the more you harm them, and then all at once realizing that the fire inside you that burned for them had actually been literally burning them and the only thing they want is for you stop hurting them.
Even more jarring is realizing that the fire you thought they had burning for you in return was actually a candle, and all the warmth you felt around them was actually coming from you instead of from them.
If you truly care for them what should you do? Let the fire continue to grow, or drown the fire in the tears you shed letting them go?
I wish she could understand how much of me she has consumed without realizing it, and at least appreciate at the end that it was my warmth that kept us comfortable in our relationship and not hers. I just never meant to hurt her so much. My body only feels cold now, as I desperately try to stamp out a fire that has raged for so long.
“What’s the harm?”
“The harm is that now he expects something out of it.”
“Oh, he does not.”
“Don’t be naive.”
“I’m not being… I just think he’s different than that.”
“He’s not.”
There is no escaping harm altogether. People harm others even when they have the best of intentions. Sometimes, the people who harm us the most are also the people who build us up the most. Some actions are clearly harmful. Others are clearly helpful. But it becomes more complicated when an action is harmful and beneficial at the same time. It is impossible to say with absolute certainty that an action was entirely good or entirely bad. It also can vary depending on timing. One single action can be harmful to a person in their future but beneficial to them in the present, or vice versa. There is harm everywhere. People can dodge it, create it, attempt to prevent it, absorb it, ignore it, fear it, accept it, become it…… Every single day is an adventure to see how you will respond to the harm that comes at you- no matter how big or small, conscious or unconscious.
“What’s the harm in one more song?”
The fire in your eyes dances on —-
following along with every step I take.
Towards you?
That’s what I want but my wandering carries me off to distant lands. My hand, my hand – it reaches back for what it cannot have. It reaches out for what will not reach back but watches on and subtly reacts.
“What harm could come of it?”, asked Landon. “Well, how could we even know, really? When an opportunity comes for discovery, you simply have to take calculated risks. And when you’re on the brink of discovery in a new frontier in a place no one has ever been, you can’t calculate risk. Sometimes you have to take that leap of faith in the name of seeking knowledge and sating curiosity, if even just for the briefest moment.”
Harm. Harm is when someone gets hurt. Harm is sometimes when an animal or person gets hurt. People can prevent harm if it happens over and over to them by calling the cops. Harm is a very bad thing. Harm can be minor or major. Don’t let harm take you down.
It’s tempting to harm you for the sake of punishment. It feels impossible to punish you for the hurt I feel, because no amount of breaking your glasses on your face or drowning you in my bathtub will equal the pain you put me through over the last two weeks.
I harm myself. I harm myself subconsciously. It’s how I operate. By extension, I harm others. I don’t mean to. It’s just how I relate to myself. I don’t know how to stop.
I harm myself and by extension harm others. I don’t mean to harm. It’s just become an unconscious habit.
I never harm people around me either by my looks or words.
Harm has me stumped.
First, do no harm.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me.
What a lie. I’ve felt a word slice home like a well-honed blade, aimed and hurled by one you could only call a warrior. Like a stone thrown. And if it makes a wound you can’t quite see? How to heal that? How to set the deepest bone so broken?
do not harm one another because it is not okay for people to do.
you harm my heart and i cant even breath
no harm to you my love but stop hurting me.
pain.
I’m in pain.
I’m not doing well.
I don’t want to come to point where I’m losing it.
Drowning like a fish with no tail.
Falling like a bird with no wings.
Lost.
I need help.
I. I. I am selfish.
I’m always lost, but today, I don’t think I’m gonna find my way back.
cut crafty construction
concepts dejected
creativity connected
is there more wonderment
than in wondering
wishing
wracking
the brain
to harm oneself
to remember
what brought oneself
here in the first place
Please, love, I don’t want to cause you any harm; just drop the broken bottle, where you sucked away the remains of your father’s soul, and no one will be hurt. See, I’m armed with silver and brass – the breastplate beneath my shirt repels every single touch. I miss feeling your skin against mine, though, before it started to burn.
I don’t want to see you injured, or worse, killed, my love – but we are running out of time.
You move closer, hand on my right shoulder. Firm grip.
“Mistletoe,” you say. Your smile is easy and terrifying.
I say nothing. I want to pull back.
They say no harm, no foul,
but I get a penalty everytime,
anyone else but me is referring me.
Harm is conducive to that go getter’s daily jostle,
I’m not sure why I’m writing, if its for the sake of the word,
or the hustle.
I came up short when I peered into my bank account,
anything less than a million,
felt like negative trillion.
Success is the best when unripe,
when unclear,
To enjoy the fruits bestowed by a tree,
one must suffocate, before one can replicate.
College life can be pretty harmful. The stress of exams and social pressures make college pretty stressful. I know a couple of people who were on the brink of suicide because of finals, and that’s not ok.
Overbearing parents who care way too much about grades and not enough about mental health make college way worse.
What is it to harm? to degrade, questionable intent leads to discussion unfounded in reality. I have a bit going on: it’s tough when your accused of actions not intended at the premise of misreprenting yourself. Girls, girls, girl; what goes on tour stays on tour.
a caduceus, interwoven snakes
on a staff resembling a uterus,
center of birth and pillowroom
with walls of decadent drapery
red and waiting to be ripped,
waiting for the inevitable
tear or stretch
or stitch.
One day I was walking down the road on a foggy night and all of a sudden a person ran up to me and pointed his spoon at me and told me this is a robbery and to give hum all my food, and I said NO PLEASE don’t harm me I have no food only money here take my money and there he went and harmed me with his spoon and ran away. When the food police came and intervened it was to late the spoon bandit had already fleed.
One day I was walking down the road on a foggy night and all of a sudden a person ran up to me and pointed his spoon at me and told me this is a robbery and to give hum all my food, and I said NO PLEASE don’t harm me I have no food only money here take my money and there he went and harmed me with his spoon.
we should do no harm to others even though we want to so badly we should stop ourselves from causing harm. So in conclusion don’t do harm.