“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”—or so they say. The sad, imminent truth, however, is that words will hurt and words will kill. If you throw a stick or a stone at someone, a bruise may appear for a week and the pain will soon subside. But if you stab somebody with the wrong words, they may end up with an agonizing wound that will forever ache deep beneath their skin. And in these days, our words have more of an effect than ever before.

Years and years ago, verbal bullying was never considered a major issue. However recently, this topic has been given more and more attention because words are no longer just coming out of our mouths; our words can be disguised as a text, a tweet, an anonymous  post, and so much more. Apathetic, insensitive individuals hide behind a screen, writing comments and creating captions that “drag” another human being, often using degrading terms that everyone in the internet realm can see. How is this okay? How is this better than physically attacking someone, punching them repeatedly until they fall to the ground? This is the exact same thing. But, rather than punches, words are being thrown carelessly at the individual until he weakens and, often times, cracks. One crack leads to another and, before you know it, he may be lying on the ground, too.

Suicide rates in teenagers have been higher than ever in recent years; could this be because of the increase of online harassment? When insults are constantly being thrown at the individual, he may begin to believe it. Crack. The whole world can see and mock his insecurities due to the force of the internet. Crack. His confidence plummets, and soon he views himself like he is mere words printed on a screen. Crack. How many more cracks will it take before he breaks, crumbling to a million pieces by dragging a blade through his vein or tying a noose to his ceiling fan?

This is no joke. Harassment and bullying of any kind are intolerable, dangerous, and potentially life-threatening. We all have phones and computers. We all have the internet. We all have tongues. We have the power to stop this harassment, to choose our words carefully, to keep demeaning words out of our mouths and off of our screens.

Remember, sticks and stones may indeed break your bones, but words have the power to kill; choose yours wisely.