Your Curse Is Your Clapback — Part Three

Segun Iwasanmi
@iwasanmisegun212159
2 months ago

© Segun Iwasanmi
"This Thing Called Life" Series — Episode 18
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A truth I have seen again and again but never fully understood until that girl behind me shouted her seventh insult.

Most people who curse others are actually speaking from a well inside them. A well that has never been cleaned. Many times, they grew up with parents whose tongues were always knives. Mothers who tore everyone down but never saw it as tearing. Fathers whose anger came out as names, labels, pronouncements.

Children who grew up hearing curses eventually believe it is how to defend themselves. So they clap back. They insult. They talk down. They call it being bold. They call it being sharp. But what they don’t know is that every curse they spit does not always land where they aim. Some of it returns home.

Words do not disappear. They travel. They wait. They find a heart. They grow. Sometimes in the person you spoke to. Sometimes in you.

I kept watching that sister behind me. Her mouth did not stop. But her face told another story. The more she insulted, the more restless she looked. She kept shaking her leg. She kept adjusting her bag. Almost like she could not sit inside her own words.

Then something strange happened.

She finally stood to go submit her form. And as she walked to the front, her friend whispered to someone beside her, not knowing I could hear.

“She talks like this when she is scared.”

Everything clicked.

She was not bold.
She was not sharp.
She was not confident.
She was afraid.

An anxious heart hiding inside loud speech. A shaky soul covering itself with noise. It made me wonder how many clapbacks in this world are just fear wearing makeup.

How many curses are just insecurity stretching itself tall. How many insults are simply pain that does not know how to stay quiet.

I looked around the hall again and something inside me softened...

To be continued... 🔥

© Segun Iwasanmi | ™The Man With The Story.
Book Writer | Screen and Scriptwriter | Creative Fiction writer | Book Editor.
I help people turn rough ideas into bold stories that work.

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