One: The one lie that everyone gets fed from the moment they are born to the moment they die is the one that we never notice.
"It will be ok".
The biggest lie under the sky,
No wonder we are such a heavy set nation.
Lies weigh more than truths.
We just never notice because they are strapped to our backs at birth: a shell of burden our knees got adjusted to.
Two: never too early to hear it.
First day of preschool.
Tears flowing down his face and onto his Mickey Mouse lunchbox.
Mom gets down on his level,
Eye to eye, and lets the lie fly into his susceptible mind.
"It will be ok."
The words fall into his back pack,
Knees wobble from the added weight of the words and he goes off to school.
Fingers slammed in a door,
Fruit snacks fall to the ground,
Flying legos fall into already teary eyes.
But he believed his mom when she said, "It will be ok."
Three: It happens almost three feet away from her.
Having a catch with her best friend in the front lawn.
The ball goes too far,
The friend tries too hard,
The tires screech too loud,
The girl closes her eyes too late. She see it all happen.
Her dad cradles her.
"It will be ok."
The weight of the lie fell as heavy as the dogs body fell into the makeshift grave in the back yard.
Four: He listens to his parents argue for four hours.
Words thrown like daggers,
aimed to piece hearts.
The boy's TV can't mask the sounds of his mother's cries, his father's pleas.
Talk of lies enters the argument looking to ground the fight.
Like heavy rocks being heaved at one another.
Not looking to kill, only looking to hurt and make suffer.
His dad comes into his room, his face wet not from sweat but from tears.
The boy learns that rocks can cry.
"It will be ok."
His father, his rock, leaves for the week.
They are reunited at court, only after the divorce is finalized.
Five: She has been dating him for five weeks.
Five times he touches her the wrong way.
Five times she removes his hands from her body.
Five times he gets on top of her.
Five times she pushes him off.
Five times he says, "Yes",
Five times she says, "No".
Five times he says, "It will be ok.".
Five times she cries as the weight of his lies pries their way into her right in front of her eyes.
She cries for years to come.
Six: Six teens argue with their parents.
Trying to go out on a Friday night is like trying to pry teeth out of a wailing child.
Parents saying,
Arguing,
Begging, "Not tonight".
Six simultaneous responses speak out, "It will be ok".
How quickly the lie escapes.
One of the few things to escape in the end.
Crushed doors on a flaming over turned car can be hard to escape from.
Seven: He questions Gods existence for seven months.
Seven months of struggling on his own; the life of an artist.
The life his father resents.
Closing off all connections to his son like a quarantine victim.
His dads words the plain grey walls of his cell.
His dads disappointment the straight jacket.
Tying his arms around him in a cold, unforgiving hug, preventing his feelings from leaving him through his brush and onto his canvas.
"It will be ok".
The lie tattooed on his wrist.
From years of wear and tear from the edges of anything that could be found.
Inspiration strikes.
Paints thrown away.
Blades taken out.
Splatters on the canvas.
Titled, "Bleeding for a Father's Love".
Eight: She sits and waits on results of eight tests with her mom.
Nervous waves ripple through her.
A rock thrown in her pond causing waves of tremors starting in her heart, trying to escape through the shaking of her hands.
Trembling,
Shaking,
Making her feel cold.
Her mom pulls her into an embrace.
Face finding its way to that place she used to retreat as a child.
"It will be ok",
Results come in.
Tears come out.
The baby, the love of her life she never expected in the first place, won't make it.
The baby she didn't mean to give life to was having its life ripped away from it, from it's creator.
Today was his first birthday.
Nine: He and she met when they were nine.
Love exchanged first with crayons.
Exchanged with letters during the war.
Exchanged with seventy years of time.
Time quickly running out now.
Love is forever, but bodies simply cannot keep up.
In his bed he holds her hand while she cries.
"It will be ok".
He says this and falls asleep after he kisses her on the forehead.
He doesn't wake up.
She grieves through the last ten years of her life.
Still exchanging love.
But in the form of flowers on his grave.
Ten: Telling the lie "It will be ok" is ten times easier than telling the truth.
But somebody has to make the effort. to break the news.
So here's the truth.
No. "It" will not be ok.
The truth is "it' will never be ok.
"It" will still be painful.
"It" will still be unexpected.
"it" will still be gone forever once it's gone.
The day may throw away its shade on you.
Things will happen to shake you.
To break you.
Or take you away from yourself.
"It" may not be ok.
But you.... you will be ok.
