Dear Bully

What you don’t understand.

You think that I’m a whore.

So what else can I say?

You’re the only one I see here

With a price tag on their face.

Keep hiding all the demons on the inside

But don’t forget to paint the angel on the outside.

We all know

Don’t you know

Who’s the fool in this crowd?

She doesn’t like the way I walk.

She doesn’t like the words I choose.

Well, that’s a damn shame

I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I guess the world will have to end another day.

Everybody asks

But no one wants to know.

Take me as I am

Or watch me as I go.

Keep wanting to be welcome on the inside

But won’t forget the ones who loved me on the outside

They don’t like the way I dress.

They won’t give up till the tears fall down my face.

But I’d never have it any other way

I guess the world will have to end another day.

They can’t stand the way I get back on my feet.

They won’t like what I’ve become.

Well, that’s a damn shame

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Looks like the world will have to end another day

Not today . . .

Girl Wars

by Crissa-Jean Chappell

They circle the cafeteria in packs

Solid as prime numbers.

Girls wage war with their laser stares

Designer jeans in identical shades

Of acid wash.

Fake nails and bulletproof bangs

Trapper Keepers, hard plastic folders

Splattered in neon unicorns

Leak out whispers

“Insert Your Name Here.”

Pockets swollen with crime-scene evidence

In Bubblicious letters

The note drifts around like a wheezy cough

You catch it.

Then catch on.

Your initials scraped into college-ruled paper

Furred with doodles

A felt-tipped mug shot

Flow charts of your faults

No telling who started it

Last period during AP Biology

Boxes checked yes/no/maybe

Breaking down your hair

Unpermed, uncut

Since kindergarten.

Your sneakers, Pez-purple high-tops

Your attitude, a vapor trail

Too skinny, too weird, too much.

“Maybe she’d look better

If she actually wore makeup, a padded bra

Or gained twenty pounds.”

At the bottom, a barbed-wire suggestion

“She should just stop eating.”

You can totally relate to the paramecium

Squirming inside that electron microscope

All your secret pieces

Magnified

Spend lunchtime alone in the band room

Drawing

Epic space battles

Under your desk.

Graphic novels that never get past

The first page.

Plotlines about girls with magical powers

Because X-ray vision is so overrated.

You’d rather be

Invisible.

The Curtain

by Deborah Kerbel

Me and them. A curtain divides us. I hide behind it, peeking out every now and then. Like a rabbit poking a nose out from its safe little hole in the ground; sniffing the air for danger.

A sharp voice shoots across the cafeteria toward my shelter. A second later, unwanted fingers slide up the spine of my still braless back. A deep, lip-curling laugh slices over my head.