3 Bullying poems

do you remember the first time you were called annoying? how your breath stopped short in your chest the way the light drained from your eyes, though you knew your cheeks were ablaze the way your throat tightened as you tried to form an argument that got lost on your tongue? your eyes never left the floor that day. you were 13. you’re 20 now, and i still see the light fade from your eyes when you talk about your interests for “too long,” apologies littering every other sentence, words trailing off a cliff you haven’t jumped from in 7 years. i could listen to you forever, though i know speaking for more than 3 uninterrupted minutes makes you anxious. all i want you to know is that you deserve to be heard for 3 minutes for 10 minutes for 2 hours forever. there will be people who cannot handle your grace, your beauty, your wisdom, your heart; mostly because they can’t handle their own. but you will never be and have never been “too much.”

In the sixth grade I was chased home by the Gatlin kids, three skinny sisters in rolled-down bobby socks. Hissing Brainiac! and Mrs. Stringbean!, they trod my heel. I knew my body was no big deal but never thought to retort: who's calling who skinny? (Besides, I knew they'd beat me up.) I survived their shoves across the schoolyard because my five-foot-zero mother drove up in her Caddie to shake them down to size. Nothing could get me into that car. I took the long way home, swore I'd show them all: I would grow up.

I hate the word, and I guess that’s why it is said? People love to hurt one another. It is what makes us human. I do love dogs. They don’t seem to be evil unless humans make them that way. Dogs can maul and they can sniff out bombs. They’ll get as close to you as they can while you’re sleeping. They’ll share heat and scent in the crook of your knees. Is there really a thing such as innocence? I have desired from birth to live. Daily, I wrestle the tight arms of guilt. At the shelter, the adoption coach told us that our new dog was highly food motivated. I have been called a bitch. Our dog trembles when he’s afraid and the only thing we can do is wait for the fear to leave. There’s no comforting him. In a dream they held me down, scrawled BITCH across my chest in old embers. They covered my head as a weapon was raised. I had a dog who once kept me from walking into the arroyo. She blocked my path and wouldn’t move. I’ll never know what, or who, she saved me from.