The BALM
  • Home
    • LGBTQ+ Resources
    • Student Businesses
  • Meet Us
    • Socials >
      • Google Forms
  • This Month
    • BALM Radio >
      • September 2025
      • October 2025
      • November 2025
      • February 2026
    • Op-Eds >
      • The Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate is Love
      • Is it Possible to Separate Art From the Artist?
      • Take Things Seriously
      • The Monsters WE Make
      • The Pressure to be in Love
      • The Black Alternative Experience
      • Know Your Rights: What To Do Around Ice
    • CREATIVE WRITING >
      • No ICE In My Drink
      • 10 Inches Taller
      • Sunflower
      • * **** ***
      • Solely For Living
      • The Lady in All Red
      • Blood-Covered "Love"
      • Deathbott Chapter 5
      • Control
      • Refuse to Watch
      • Sugar on my Tongue
      • Die Your Daughter
    • Artist Corner >
      • Dog.
      • When you have a bat, everything looks like a ball.
      • Deathbott Character Art
    • Media Reviews >
      • Iron Lung Review
      • Heartless to Heated: Heated Rivalry
      • Night In the Woods Analysis: The Hole At The Center Of Everything
    • Sports Panel >
      • Boys Swim: Senior Highlight
      • Girls Swim: Senior Highlight
      • Girls Basketball: Senior Highlight
  • Featured Article
    • The Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate is Love
    • Know Your Rights: What To Do Around Ice
  • Teacher's Corner
    • Teachers Corner: DeVaul
    • Teachers Corner: Ejzak: How to Combat chatGPT? Embrace the Same Anti-Authoritarian Teaching Practices We Should’ve Been Doing All Along
    • Teacher's Corner: Mr. Hazzard's Love Letter To Brooks
    • Teacher's Corner: Gordon
    • Teacher's Corner: Wilde
    • Teacher's Corner: David
    • Teacher's Corner: Ejzak
    • Teacher's Corner: Rago
  • Archive
    • 9.25 >
      • Two
      • Young and Pretty
      • Chimeras: Growing Up in Majority-White and Majority-Black Schools
      • My Favorite Color Used To Be Pink
      • Good Mother
      • Cancel the Mouse: Why New Disney Sucks
      • Is Hope the New Punk Rock?: Superman Movie Review
    • 10.25 >
      • Ignorance Is PURE Bliss
      • The Subjectivity of Creativity: How Wrongful Interpretation is Dangerous
      • Petty Games
      • If You're So Wise, Why Do You Come Off So Passionless?
      • How Animal Farm by George Orwell Still Speaks Today
      • How To Train Your Hyper-Realistic Live Action Reboot
      • Absense of August
      • Art fight Collection
    • 11.25 >
      • The Overconsumption Cycle
      • My Experience Being Painfully Insecure.
      • An Age-Old Question
      • They Hate Us Cause They Ain't Us
      • Transgressions Against the Father
      • Watership Down
      • The Black Phone 2: More is Less
      • How Fish Became Gods
    • 1.26 >
      • The Concept of One Individual
      • Police & Black Americans—The Battle for Civil Rights
      • White Hair Braiders
      • The Dust Under My Bed
      • Popular (Wicked)
      • “Carpe Diem, Seize The Day.” - A Media Review On Dead Poets Society
      • They Could've Made Anything, but They Chose This Book

IGNORANCE IS PURE BLISS
Nahlej vonneedo, october 2025

TW Serious Topics: Abuse, Self-Harm, Bullying, Assault.

I’m not usually one to lie, one to cower behind people, one to hide. I’m usually upfront and strong about my feelings. But I have to assess the people with whom I’m dealing. After seeing it all—those nasty scars, ungodly sins, seeing those physical marks, signs of distress—all of those, and you couldn’t care less. It was as if her pain was nothing to you, and you didn’t even bat an eye. What about the pain of someone worse… the pain of a broken guy? The pain, invisible to the eyes, one that most can’t see. Some noticed, but some also drew back from me. A girl’s pain is reacted back 100x louder, and taken more seriously. A guy’s pain is usually snuffed out and not cared about. But what if that guy is shouldering his pain, her pain, and everyone else’s pain?

I’m not usually one to talk badly about someone, to put them down, to make them out to be a villain. But some people don’t know much about the people they’re dealing with. He hit her, and he lied. He made her pain a joke and made her cry. The pain I felt echoed louder than her tears. I let someone hurt someone important to me, and I did nothing. He made her slice her own skin, running a knife across it, blood running thin, thin like the line of defense she had, thick like the overwhelming trust she had for him. He tries and tries to ruin all that’s good, wants people to feel the same pain that he does. He hurts and hurts, but no one’s ever alert, so when he hurts others, no one pays attention either. And when people do, people tend not to care, and it just leaves me so pissed, open blindness may it be, but ignorance is bliss. Ignoring it for their OWN good, hoping they don’t have to deal with the same thing, hoping they don’t end up caught up between this horrible highschool war, one that “tore” apart, peoples hearts, but the moment he set foot in the atmosphere, everyone near turns off their ability to hear, everyone near me suddenly now can’t see, everyone around close enough to walk, suddenly can’t speak, they suddenly can’t talk. He beats on women, I don’t care if he doesn’t do it anymore, for her pain was more than anyone could hold inside, but I hid it away, because of my own pain I had to hide. 

He hit on her, literally beat her up, made her cry, she wanted to run and hide, he beat her up to get out how he felt, beat her up to get rid of the pain inside. He beat her up, pulled her hair, punched her hair, while viewers stared, sent them pictures of her on the ground, played out her and her crushes voice messages out loud, read out her text messages, laughing at her face, god did he make her feel like a disgrace, he hurt her so badly, the sweetest girl ever, that sick bastard, the worst guy ever. He was jealous of her for having a guy, someone to laugh with, someone whom she could cry; he was sad and alone, seeking a “man,” seeking some more male attention, even from his friends. He told her, “You won’t do anything about it, so I know you won’t shout it.” You're used to the pain, so it won’t be in vain, because you’re silent like a mouse, inside of a gigantic house, so even if you’re on the loose, it’s like a car against a moose. Destined to crash and fail, so endure this torturous hell. 

This terrible and sick guy, must have wanted her to cry, wanted her to come to him, so he can manipulate and lie, lie to her, to make her feel seen, and then soak his lie filled fangs with nothing but dreams, dreams of hope, dreams to make it out with your feelings saved, but those dreams were CUT short, when he made you pick up that blade, manipulated by someone close to you, because he does it to himself, you thought why not give it a shot, it’s something that can be easily done without being caught. So you said, why not try? This guy is my friend, he wouldn’t lie, so he made her pick up a blade, when will his tyranny end, this was only another friend. 2 down, 1 more to go. When will they be free? Sadly, the last one to go in this story is me. But luckily for me, my pain I got from him, a little longer I can hide, I can keep my dignity, and some of my pride. You know what they say, ignorance is pure bliss, so keeping what he did to me, this sad story… It’s one they won’t miss.


​

NAHLEJ VONNEEDO

Picture

    JOIN THE BALM MAILING LIST 

Subscribe to Newsletter
  • Home
    • LGBTQ+ Resources
    • Student Businesses
  • Meet Us
    • Socials >
      • Google Forms
  • This Month
    • BALM Radio >
      • September 2025
      • October 2025
      • November 2025
      • February 2026
    • Op-Eds >
      • The Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate is Love
      • Is it Possible to Separate Art From the Artist?
      • Take Things Seriously
      • The Monsters WE Make
      • The Pressure to be in Love
      • The Black Alternative Experience
      • Know Your Rights: What To Do Around Ice
    • CREATIVE WRITING >
      • No ICE In My Drink
      • 10 Inches Taller
      • Sunflower
      • * **** ***
      • Solely For Living
      • The Lady in All Red
      • Blood-Covered "Love"
      • Deathbott Chapter 5
      • Control
      • Refuse to Watch
      • Sugar on my Tongue
      • Die Your Daughter
    • Artist Corner >
      • Dog.
      • When you have a bat, everything looks like a ball.
      • Deathbott Character Art
    • Media Reviews >
      • Iron Lung Review
      • Heartless to Heated: Heated Rivalry
      • Night In the Woods Analysis: The Hole At The Center Of Everything
    • Sports Panel >
      • Boys Swim: Senior Highlight
      • Girls Swim: Senior Highlight
      • Girls Basketball: Senior Highlight
  • Featured Article
    • The Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate is Love
    • Know Your Rights: What To Do Around Ice
  • Teacher's Corner
    • Teachers Corner: DeVaul
    • Teachers Corner: Ejzak: How to Combat chatGPT? Embrace the Same Anti-Authoritarian Teaching Practices We Should’ve Been Doing All Along
    • Teacher's Corner: Mr. Hazzard's Love Letter To Brooks
    • Teacher's Corner: Gordon
    • Teacher's Corner: Wilde
    • Teacher's Corner: David
    • Teacher's Corner: Ejzak
    • Teacher's Corner: Rago
  • Archive
    • 9.25 >
      • Two
      • Young and Pretty
      • Chimeras: Growing Up in Majority-White and Majority-Black Schools
      • My Favorite Color Used To Be Pink
      • Good Mother
      • Cancel the Mouse: Why New Disney Sucks
      • Is Hope the New Punk Rock?: Superman Movie Review
    • 10.25 >
      • Ignorance Is PURE Bliss
      • The Subjectivity of Creativity: How Wrongful Interpretation is Dangerous
      • Petty Games
      • If You're So Wise, Why Do You Come Off So Passionless?
      • How Animal Farm by George Orwell Still Speaks Today
      • How To Train Your Hyper-Realistic Live Action Reboot
      • Absense of August
      • Art fight Collection
    • 11.25 >
      • The Overconsumption Cycle
      • My Experience Being Painfully Insecure.
      • An Age-Old Question
      • They Hate Us Cause They Ain't Us
      • Transgressions Against the Father
      • Watership Down
      • The Black Phone 2: More is Less
      • How Fish Became Gods
    • 1.26 >
      • The Concept of One Individual
      • Police & Black Americans—The Battle for Civil Rights
      • White Hair Braiders
      • The Dust Under My Bed
      • Popular (Wicked)
      • “Carpe Diem, Seize The Day.” - A Media Review On Dead Poets Society
      • They Could've Made Anything, but They Chose This Book