Megan Hall - Dear Bully

They were winning. I stayed in my room. I rarely came out. I listened to the Lemonheads and made new friends. I found excuses to stay away from my house. My breath always sped up when I went home, unsure of what would be missing from my room. What would have accidentally been broken. What conversations would stop the moment I walked inside. One by one, the girls moved out. My old roommate had turned the house against me. I became that girl I had watched so many years ago from the safe heights of the library window of my private school. The one talked about, mocked, teased, bullied. The one I swore I would never be. I stayed in my room. The two girls who stayed behind became my close friends. They didn’t believe the things my old roommate had been saying about me. They gave me a chance. And they realized that the girl she described was not really me. My heart started to mend. Still sore, but healing.

Fifteen years later. My heart really does start to break. My aortic arch and carotid arteries are causing strokes. I’m sliced down the middle so that they can fix the heart—the one that felt like it had been broken so many times really was in need of mending. The scar is huge, red, and angry; one you can see. This is a scar of survival. I have a little girl now. A husband. A home. So much to live for. Now when I feel my heart beating in my chest, it gives me strength. I know that I’m alive and lucky to be here. I think back to those days when I barricaded myself in my college room, fearing the wrath of the mean girls ; I think back to high school, junior high, middle school, trying so desperately to fly under the radar so that I wouldn’t be singled out. I wouldn’t be the one made fun of at field hockey practice. I wouldn’t be the one who girls called awful names: slut, loser, bitch, psycho. Thinking back to those days, I feel a different type of pain. One that gnaws beneath the stitches that stretch from my neck to my abdomen, that are deeper than the titanium clips that hold my sternum together. These are pains that no medication can ease. While I appreciate every minute of the beating inside my chest, because I know that I’m alive and I’m here for my family, there is something that still frightens me.

I have a daughter. And I know what girls are capable of. I cannot have my heart broken again—or worse, watch as hers is broken. I fear for my daughter in these days of texting and IM’ing and Facebook and posting pictures and rumors and lies online. She is only eight. But soon she will be the one walking down the halls of the junior high. How will she handle what I could not? Will she fade into the background like I did? Or will she have the strength in her own character to stand up for herself? Only time will tell. Until then, my heart will continue to pump one glorious life-sustaining beat after another. I just hope that if she is the one being taunted, teased, bullied, a girl just like me will emerge from the shadows—one who was too afraid to get involved for fear of having the tides turn on her. That she will stand by my daughter’s side. So that she will never, ever have to go through heartbreak alone.

End of the World

by Jessica Brody

Everybody asks

But no one wonders why.

I laugh as you pretend

To take interest in my life,

Smile when I pass

Then talk behind my back.

You think you’re so creative

With your meager attacks.

Keep searching for the beauty on the inside

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

We all know

We all know

What sells to the crowd.

She doesn’t like the way I look.

She doesn’t like what I believe.

Well, that’s a damn shame.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I think the world will have to end another day.

You think that I’m a cheater

So call me what I am.

I know it’s hard to label

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.