Casual Violence

Open your eyes, my love,
and stop hurting yourself.
Peace is the prize, my love,
but you don’t help yourself.

Why do we do this to ourselves?
Everyday, every week,
Little things flow like a breeze
Cut sharp but not deep,
Leaving tiny cuts
That go unseen,
But add up, until we bleed.

Maybe not blood, but…

Little knicks become tricks
Spreading quick like oil slick,
Only the wise can spot their cries
Because their jaded eyes always have spies
On standby in disguise

If you can’t see it, is it really there?
If you can’t feel it, should you even care?

Out of sight, out of mind,
Hidden in plain sight
Mindlessness breeds negligence
The perfect fuel to feed the fire.
Only it’s not a fire, just a match,
Sometimes smaller like a scratch.
Or the slight lick or a pin prick
That knick thick fingers
pulling needle and thread.

Never grandiose or gaudy,
These crimes are soft, leaving no body,
They’ll never take a life, but they’ll take your future.
You might not feel the cut, but you’ll sew the suture

It’s so minor, you can’t be bothered
I’ll do it later, maybe get to it tomorrow,
or the next day, or the next day, or the next—

Working a job that gives money
Working jobs that work us into the ground

• Not getting enough sleep

• Staying in toxic relationships

• Letting parents disrespect you

• Letting someone talk over you or interrupt you

• Settling / accepting less than you’re worth

• Watching the news

• Refusing to cry / hiding feelings

• Loving slowly / playing it cool / withholding love because you’re afraid of scaring the other person

• Holding grudges

• Not getting enough sleep

• Binge drinking

• Negative self talk

• Eating past when you’re full

• Hiding from ourselves in the mirror

• Procrastinating

• Silence when you should speak up or out

• Silence when you don’t say what you want or need

• Assuming people know things that only live in your mind

• Buying books that you never read that lay still and gather dust. Pages never creased. Spin never cracked.

• Forgetting to water your plant

• Overwatering your plant

• Eating dairy - bubble guts booty trumpet

• Drinking coffee on an empty stomach

• Waiting too long between haircuts

• Blowing up someone else’s bathroom

• I haven’t seen my joy in weeks
  Casual violence is still violence,
  And if you loved yourself you wouldn’t hurt yourself
  These subtle things aren’t just little things
  Because little things become big things,
  Then big things become everything
  
  If your heart speaks to you, you should listen
  And when it doesn’t speak you should still listen.
  
  [They may be small, but with time they are mighty
  Underestimating their strength
  Is the green light for them
  And they will fight you at length
  And maybe the fake that they’re underestimated is the very thing that keeps them alive and everywhere]