When I was a kid I had a tendency to get angry easily. And when I got angry, I would hurt other people with words and fists. So one day my father put a black Sharpie in my hand. He pointed to a white wall and said, "Whenever you feel yourself getting upset, take this marker and create a line across the wall."
Now whenever I felt my hands becoming fists and my tongue creating knives, I ran to the wall and slashed it with my Sharpie. The more I did this, the more relieved I became; the more I felt like my problems just went away.
But as I grew older I didn't feel the need to mark the wall anymore. I barely lost my temper, but instead took deep breaths. However, every night I would see the wall across my bed. I would stare at the Sharpie coated wall that was bleeding black in front of me. I shut my eyes every night and hoped that the next morning the lines would be gone.
I was sick of looking at the wall and wanted the gashes to disappear and become pure again. So I took white paint and painted the wall. Though however many times I pained the Sharpie infested wall white, the slashes of black still shone through. They wouldn't go away.
My father walked into my room as I was sitting on the ground crying. He leaned over to me and told me something I'll never forget: "When you slash people with words, fists or Sharpies, it will never fade away. However many times you try to fix it with apologizes or paint, the scars will always be pleading to stay."