I saw a girl cry today. In my third period English. She came in late, her face red and crinkled. She sat at the edge of the classroom, trying to cover her face, sloppy tears falling on her thin white blouse. No one did anything. No one did a fucking thing. She had no friends in the class, no one was there to comfort her. People were repelled by that much raw emotion. I sat across from her, drifting in and out of focus of what the teachers was saying. Watching her like a hawk. But I never said anything. I don’t quite know why. Maybe I was scared to get tangled up in a stranger’s pain.
The class ended and she stormed out, headed to the bathrooms. No one followed her, no one at all. What does this say about us? Ever since we are born we are taught to cover our real emotions. Our automatic response if someone asks us how we are is to say “fine thanks”. It is considered rude to say, “awful” or “horrible” or “angry” , people don’t want to know that much. So what’s the outcome of all this repressed emotion? Order, I guess, and quiet. People go along with what they are meant to do. I won’t tell you that I love you, because I am afraid you won’t love me back. You won’t tell me your upset because I might think your strange. That is the way it is, the way it has always been.
