Dear Bully

You didn’t think you had already hurt me.

And if you did, it wasn’t your fault.

You didn’t know I would take it so hard,

even when you stole my clothes in gym

and stuck them in the toilet

and then gagged out loud whenever you saw me

for weeks afterward

and told everyone I smelled like shit.

You didn’t think that would cause me to run home in tears

and look at myself in the mirror

and cry some more

because I was starting to believe

the names you called me.

I was gross.

I was weird.

I was stupid.

I was ugly.

I didn’t deserve any better.

You’ll never know any of this because

you won’t recognize yourself in a word I’ve said.

You didn’t think you were a bully.

You didn’t think you hurt me.

You didn’t think.

The Secret

by Heather Brewer

I looked over the page again, my eyes flitting from this word to that, trying to fight the tears from coming. Tears made them laugh. Tears gave them those knowing, smug smiles that said that they had me right where they wanted me. So I didn’t give in, didn’t cry. But my heart ached, and all I wanted to do was to shrivel up inside of myself and disappear.

It was my senior year. What’s more, it was the last week of high school. I was so close to being free of the torment, free of the teasing, free of the abuse. But just as I was beginning to enjoy the idea of not seeing my fellow classmates every day, the senior edition school newspaper had come out. It was tradition back then (I’m not sure how it is now) that the graduating class’s student council members get together and “gift” each graduate with something imaginary that would remind all of us of that person’s personality. A girl I knew was in drama club and had spoken at great length about studying law, so they gifted her with a guest shot on a show called L.A. Law. On the surface, the entire concept was only mildly annoying and at some times amusing.

Only when I got to my gift, I wasn’t amused at all. I also wasn’t surprised.

The first time I remember being bullied, I was in kindergarten. This rotten little boy named Greg pulled my hair as I raced down the slide on the playground. Three years later, Greg would put a tack on my chair. It stung a little when the metal pierced my skin, but what stung worse was when everyone laughed and pointed and when they each would take turns on a daily basis trying to trick me once again into sitting on a tack. I’m proud to say they never got me again. Not after almost twenty tries. But what they did do was send me a very clear message: “You are not wanted here. You are not one of us. You are different, and therefore must be punished.”

And I was different. I dressed weird. I read books all the time. I wrote stories about faraway places. And I came from a family with a notorious history in that small town. My family had suffered the ill fate of losing five homes to house fires over a period of seven years. Everyone knew my name. I was the freak with the fires. I didn’t belong. That message was crystal clear.

It was a message that would be repeated throughout my entire grade-school experience, when I would do my best to stay silent in class or on the bus. I’d hide out in the library when I could. But nothing I did prevented the name-calling, the hair pulling, the creative yet horrifying prank of convincing me that a boy liked me. When I finally agreed to go out with him, everyone laughed. The only funny part of that story is that his name was also Greg. Apparently, I’m doomed to be tormented by the Gregs of the world.