But Me.

But Me.
 

See I'm one of those stories you hear so much about

I was bullied in grade-school

Called a freak, and a weirdo

Again in middle school

Called a dyke, and an emo slut

Then in high-school

While the nicknames were over and done with

I was still treated less

Less than everyone else

Because I couldn't get the grades to beat their race for the best GPA

And after awhile while I struggled against the over-bearing weight of my classmates

and my family to succeed and to achieve

I couldn't see myself clearly anymore

I looked in the mirror and didn't see me

Didn't see a human

Didn't see anything but worthless

I was called stupid

I was called undeserving of this education

And not just once, by my own tongue

Of this life

And they told me that if I couldn't step up, I better get the fuck out

Or I'd be kicked out

Of that school

So I stopped trying to love myself

Stupidly I stopped trying to prove to myself that I was more than just a grade 

On a paper written in red ink
More than just the best friend of the girl who came out of the closet during a time where every kid thought it would be cool to throw food at us
Because we called ourselves different.

Because she loves differently then they do.

And because I stood up for her and tried to protect all of them who wanted people to know that they were different.

But my arms couldn't close around them and I was too weak to hold on and we just ended up covered in food and bruises. 
And that I was more than just that girl who never speaks
More than that thing in the corner of the room
The freak

They called me

I stopped trying to love 

My body and my mind

And I stepped up and I tried the best as I could

To get that A or B

But still it wasn’t good enough

and while I sobbed in the corner of my room because of a bad grade from a physics test because the teacher hated me and she probably thought I was on the edge of committing suicide but never once did she tell me that I was “worthy of living”

Only then did I let the hurt show and the words

Like shattered glass on fingertips

The words “do you love me?”

Spilled out from my lips into my fathers ears

And the look on his face I'll never forget

Because he looked at me in pain and said “Of course”

Of course I'm loved

I'm wanted.

Something inside of me cracked

Either like delicate crystal

or the crack of a bat during a game

And I gave up the race for the best fucking GPA in my school, the race against my classmates and my teachers

I was called stupid, they thought I didn't care about the work anymore

But I still rocked a 3.8 and I was damn proud of that low low number compared to everyone else in the school.

But I tried a little bit more to see what my parents saw

To actually see the human inside me

I wasn't just a grade

Or a bad test score

Or the quiet girl in the back of class who never spoke up because she was afraid of rejection

And bullies

Again

Not again

I fell back into writing and I tried to ease the pain
Untangle my thoughts and emotions
All the pain and the death that I held in my memories

Write the feelings down

Not just the bad ones but the good

Like the way she used to hug me before she died

Told that I could be anything

How she was the only one who told me “chase your dreams no matter what”
And while I stared at her, as she lay in the hospital bed, barely breathing and just sleeping
But dead

I poured my soul into these letters and paper

and I cried for everyone who still has to go through

What I still can't beat

The feeling that nothing I will ever do
Will the shut out their voices, their words, their actions
When I was just an impressionable kid
Longing for acceptance, for love, for joy
Instead receiving the side of a stick, or a snide remark in the locker rooms
So that when I got home that day

In the afternoon
Their words still stuck to my brain
And my friends tears still stained my clothes
And the self-made cuts on my arms weren't helping
To release the anger and the pain that I kept having to feel

So you ask me why?

And all of you have done this once

If not to me then to one of your friends

Because when I got to college

and I have people here telling me

that I am beautiful

That I am intelligent

That I’m clever and great and wonderful and deserving

Deserving of what I want

Deserving of the life that I'm living

It still doesn't ring true

Because when I look in the mirror I still don't see

But I keep trying and keep hoping

That one day I'll look at me

I'll feel that same pride
See that same girl

That everyone else seems to see now

But me. 

-Eleanor Hastings