I’ve always loved words, always cared about words, always thought that words are all what really matters. Words can kill, everyone would say. I’d actually often lose sleep over words I’ve said; ones that I can literally spend forever wishing I could take back. And others that I can only wish I could get another tiny chance to let out after mistakenly having kept them inside. Yet recently, I’ve realized there’s something way stronger, way more powerful, can bring along way more pain, and that is: looks.

Words can be misinterpreted, but you can always, somehow, say more of them to make up for that. But looks, looks are often followed by silence. What happens in those few seconds of silence can forever get stuck in your head, and you might never know how to explain any of it again.

There’s the look of a person silently judging you, so oblivious of the fact that it already shows all over their face. The look on a person’s face after having been exposed to an extremely dark side of yours that you’ve never let anyone in on before, as they try not to say something they know they’d regret, but their looks still expose it all. The look on their face when they think you’re not looking their way – as their mind silently speaks so loud about you, and the sudden change in their features when you unexpectedly turn back to them and catch their judgmental stare. It hurts. It all happens in a split of a second, and it hurts. There’s no room for explanations. You just continue to remember it forever, and they might never even know that their looks had betrayed them this way.

Then there’s the look that’s shared between two very stubborn faces after the very long arguments they’ve had. They might both be coldly staring at one another, but they’ll still somehow hear the sound of their hearts as they shatter inside, and they’d both refuse to let it show. Their eyes are locked, but they’re both waiting for the other’s eyes to soften up a little, so they could lovingly look back at them again. It hurts to see all this coldness in the eyes of someone you (used to) love, and it hurts to know they’re looking back at a similar reflection, because looks can hurt this bad and none of you would dare talk about the immense pain that something so simple has caused.

There’s the look of a person who pretends they hadn’t just caught a glimpse of that someone they’d been trying to avoid. There’s the look of a person who’ve just said goodbye to someone they know they’re never seeing again. There’s the look of a person who has just been rejected by the love of their life, and the look of that other person who has just rejected someone they had never wished to hurt. There’s the look of a person who had been wanting to pour their heart out to someone, but had watched that someone’s uninterested face from the very first minute, preferred to swallow their words, and stayed silent instead. There’s the look of a person who did pour their heart out to someone then spent the rest of the day with the edge of their fingers unconsciously holding their lips together after realizing they had let too much of themselves out and wished they could take any of it back. There’s the (sad) look on a very-happy face, wishing that that special someone could have only been there to celebrate together their happy news.

Then there’s the look of a person staring right back at a laptop screen, hating the fact that they still couldn’t put all the hurt they’ve experienced/witnessed from all the different looks they’ve ever seen, in what they had once thought was the most powerful thing on Earth; words.

Looks are so underestimated. Watch people. Really watch people. Watch their faces, and talk back to them with your own. You never know what looks can do. You really never know.