Agonizing Reflections

He held a glass in his hand, it had a green tint that got darker towards the bottom of the glass. In the other hand, he held a pipe to his lips that had some smoldering herb in the bowl. Lowering the pipe, he exhaled a ring of smoke into the air as tears tried to fight their way up to the surface.

Shut up and take it

Get over it

That’s what he were supposed to do, right? Cause he was a man. That’s what both his parents, aunties and everyone always told him when he was wounded and traumatized, when he was horrifically betrayed and left to drown in the waves of pain that beat down on him. That was especially stated when the parents, aunties, etc., were the cause of such agony. No acknowledgement, no apology just a vague statement of how much they loved him, and told him couldn’t feel his feelings, he had to get over it cause “that’s what this family does”.

And take it he did. He genuinely believed that was the way, so would take each burden, each slap to the face, each hit, thinking it was done out of love.

But would love deliberately cause such pain and wearing down on another loved one?

No

But love was claimed…they certainly acted like it after the wound was established, made it seem like it was his fault…but was there no true love there in the first place? Or did they genuinely believe it was love, but didn’t realize it was actually messed up and a little twisted?

When that realization started to hit him midway through an argument with his mother, and he started to express this, it was like he wasn’t talking to his mother anymore, it was like a vile monster clawed its way through her skin and burst forth. Horrible, horrible things were vomited out of her mouth, threats to keep him away from his siblings were made, along with accusations of treating her like his father had before chasing him out of his house. Though after kicking him out, she was acting all calm all of a sudden and crying, so hmm.

The very next day after kicking him out, she was nice to him and was saying how much she wanted to help, and was wanting to make sure he still attended family events and came around.

Took him a long while to realize how manipulative that was.

The rest of the aunties and relatives shunned him, one auntie in particular threatened to lie everyone else that he was a thief if he didn’t change.

Why is it only hitting me now how messed up that was?

The only reason he’s even thinking about it now was because of a remark his mother made the other day after they had seemed to be fine and that everything was just gonna be swept under the rug – “if someone tells you to get over it that means that they don’t respect or value your or your emotions at all”.

Cause isn’t that what she and the rest of the family all told him time and time again when they were the ones that hurt him?

Interesting comment.

And it’s what brought all of this rushing back.

Leaving him shaking as he fights the tears as it hits him how truly messed up it all is.

Did they really not value or respect him?

But it was a while ago, even if he’s realizing it now, it’s not worth dealing with, right? No reason to go to them and be like “What the fuck?” cause it was like a year ago, too long ago to bring up, right?

But it still happened…and pain doesn’t have a set timeline for when it’s time to heal…and if it’s coming up, it means it needs to be addressed, right?

He drew in a sharp breath as the tears finally started to sink down his face, hands shaking so much the glass slipped from his grasp and shattered on the floor.

What the fuck was he meant to do now?