The Silent Insult

Letter to some people I met, in the street, in the subway etc.

Dear Madam, dear Sir,
I don’t know you and you don’t know me either, yet in your eyes, everything seems to say the opposite. You don’t look at me completely in the eyes, but you watch my every move. At the slightest step or gesture on my part, you clutch your bag and belongings, as if I had the power to snatch them from a distance. Your fear of me projects in me a trouble, a doubt. Am I really the person you seem to fear so much? I didn’t realize that I was this being who could inspire so much fear. This fear that you project creates an uneasiness between us. I try to remain calm, but I am as if paralyzed. I don’t know where to put myself, I have the impression to be in the way. In my head, I cannot make any more the vacuum, I have only one desire, it is to leave this uncomfortable situation. During my day, dozens of you give me this look, I end up telling myself that there is something wrong with me. These repeated confrontations make me sad because they deepen the distance between us. My benevolence towards you is suspicious, so I shut down and count the minutes until my final stop. Sometimes, a certain anger rises. I tell myself I don’t deserve to be looked at with such suspicion. Yet piss me off, you’ll be right. So, I found as a parry only to remind me of God. You condemn me at first sight without any form of judgment. My only answer is to forgive you again and again.

In your eyes, there is an insult that hurts me and that builds an invisible wall between you and me. You don’t need to speak, I understand everything in your eyes. You don’t know who I am, what I think, where I come from, even if your eyes say otherwise. By your attitude, you show contempt, a hatred towards the image that I send back. But my appearance is only the smallest part of what I am. Your heart is closed, if I close mine, you will have won. Your prejudices I must forgive you and perhaps with time you will look at me differently.