the pain. the pain was the only thing that told me I was alive. touching the cool blade after a hard day. knowing I could take out my worries on myself. giving myself pain was my punishment for being all the things I'm not supposed to be. fat, ugly, overweight, a slut, whore, bitch, pig, and a worthless piece of shit.
the bullying started in grade five when Michael Clifford transferred to my school. it's kind of ironic, since the new kid is usually the one who gets bullied. at first it started with him telling me my lunch was too heavy. then it lead to him teasing me about my weight. I wasn't particularly a fat kid, I was just a little overweight.
they always tell you it will get better. to just ignore the bullies and tell an adult you trust. those are lies. you can't 'just ignore them'. it doesn't 'get better'. bullies torment you until you go insane. they kill all of your self esteem and diminish your confidence. you don't want to go to school, or virtually anywhere. all you want to do is lay down and die. all those things that were said to you during the day, haunt you at night.
in my life, Michael was the bully. if you don't include his 'gang' that he always hangs out with. that 'gang' included Calum Hood, Luke Hemmings, and Ashton Irwin. all of them were jerk bags. they have tormented me everyday of my life since I can remember. when Michael transferred, he became their new leader.
come back to present day, and I still have problems with him. "hey shithead, looking like you're gonna swallow the cafeteria today." Michael says, turning around to fist bump his buddies. I turn around and focus my attention on getting my books out of my locker. he slams my locker shut and drops his ice cold water down my shirt. he then leaves, acting like nothing happened. tears well up in my eyes and I quickly wipe them away. i open my locker again and get out my books. I quietly close my locker and scurry to my next class, which I luckily don't share with him.
that period seems to go by very quickly, which I am very grateful for. my shirt is still faintly damp from the water, but I shake it off. I just have to survive one more period and then I can get out of here. no biggie. I then realize that I have that class with Michael, and I sit right next to him. great.
I am shaking by the time I finally get seated, mostly from the fear of being humiliated in front of the entire math class by you-know-who. when the bell rings, I am surprised to see that Michael hasn't shown up. most likely because he skipped class and went home or something. a wave of relief washes over me and I can finally relax, for now.
I rush home and run to my room as fast as I can. but it's not fast enough. my drunk mom, if I can even call her that, snatches my arm.
"cccaaasssssedyh goo do the launddrrry" she manages to slur
"yes ma'am" I reply as I set my bag down and take the laundry-filled basket upstairs to my room.
the laundry load is bigger than usual, since my mom's new boyfriend has been sleeping at our house for the past week. he is out buying more alcohol for the two of them to drink. I don't expect much from him.
my dad left a year ago. my mom hit rock bottom 2 months after he left. she drank all night and slept all day. it. was a continuous cycle. she then moved on to finding strange men at bars. she brought them home and gave them food and free laundry service (which I had to do). then they left a couple days later. and that cycle repeated.
after I finish the laundry, I do my homework, which I dread very much. I try to zoom through it and not think about it. homework reminds me of school, and school is a living hell.
I unwrap my headphones, and plug them into my phone. I turn the volume all the way up, so I basically drown out the the world and all of my problems. even though my headphones block out most noises, I can't help but hear a knock at my bedroom door. before I have time to answer, in walks my moms recent boyfriend. he is clearly drunk, and I can tell by the way he stumbles over to my bed.
he heavily sits down on my bed, and places his greasy hand on my thigh. he slides it further upwards until he reaches my jeans' pocket. I slap his hand away and cringe away from his touch, but he keeps coming closer to me. this is what happens for every boyfriend my mom has. I punch him in the jaw and he stumbles out of the room crying like the little girl he really is. this is how I treat everyone one of my moms boyfriends. and every time I try and tell my mom about it, she blows it off, so I stopped trying to tell her.
I then take a shower and go to bed, because I don't want to face the harshness of life anymore.
