Stupid Things Said Quietly
It wasn’t planned. Just something said in the moment—offhand, unfiltered, half-meant at best. The kind of sentence that leaves your mouth faster than your brain can catch it. And at the time, it didn’t even feel like much. Just words. Sloppy ones, maybe. But not harmless.
No one was supposed to hear it outside the two of us. That’s the part that made it seem safe. The room felt casual. The moment felt forgettable. And so a horrible word was uttered in a stupid situation, for an even stupider reason, by someone who didn’t think their voice carried much weight.
But it did.
That’s the thing about words. They don’t stay where you leave them. They wander. They take root in places you can’t see, in people you weren’t even talking to. And once they’ve been heard, you can’t unsay them—not really. Apologise, sure. Learn from it, hopefully. But the sound lives on, replaying itself in the ears of the person who received it.
Most people don’t mean to hurt anyone. Careless words still cause careful wounds. And the damage doesn’t care whether it was intentional or not. It still wounds. Sometimes permanently.
Later, when things quiet down, you might try to justify it to yourself. “It was just said to shut her up.” “I didn’t think anyone besides her would hear.” “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
But what you think doesn’t change how those words made others feel.
Words matter, even the stupid and hateful ones. Especially the hateful ones. Because they’re the ones that sneak past your filters and show people the parts of you that maybe you haven’t looked at too closely.
So say less when you’re angry, horny, drunk or in love. Think more. And if something tasteless escapes your mouth—own it. Don’t bury it in silence and hope it rots away. Pull it up by the root. Learn the shape of it.
Because even in a stupid moment, you’re still responsible for what grows from your words.
