A Memory Poem: Jordan Candler

7
I think I’m prettier than the rest of the girls in my class. They're too skinny.
8
I'm quitting my school’s basketball team. I’m not good at basketball. The other girls are faster than me. They won't like me if I'm not as fast as them.
9
Today I got called fat for the first time.
His name is Daniel.
He's very good at PE.  His feet move fast and mine do not so he used his to trample all over me. I did not cry.
10
I do not like my new school. I do not have friends here.
11
I don’t understand why I am the only person who sits alone at lunch.
11
Why do you keep telling me I smell weird? I don’t like it when you say I am ugly. I don’t like it when you laugh at me. I do not like it when you tell me I am stupid.
11
Every time you told me I had no friends, you broke something. You broke my walls as if my shattered remains made your mirror reflect better. Your tongue threw more dodge-balls at me than the kids did in PE and I’m tired of being pelted with you’re a loser you’re a loser you’re a loser you’re a loser.
my hands curl around my vocal chords searching for my last “stop it” but all I feel is choked
11
My mind is a museum and I wish you would stop hanging up paintings I do not want to see
My heart is the fragile sculpture you have to search very hard to find and if you break it, you buy it so stop throwing around your rock hard words and shattering everything with a touch of beauty
You speak in explosions and everything I can see is ablaze
I’m trying to block the fire with my last shred of decency but its edges are curling in and now I can’t look people in the eyes when they talk to me because all I see is a spark above a flood of gasoline.
11
You use keys as weapons and computer screens for a mouth and pixels pry open every piece of pride I have left.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but combinations of letters typed online should not be able to make me feel worthless.
83
Percent of girls report being bullied either in school or online.
56
Percent of students have witnessed some type of bullying at school.
90
Percent of bullying happens in 4th through 8th graders.
24 out of 25
Teachers who witness bullying in their class do not report it and see it as trivial and as something that will pass.
160,000
Students skip school each day due to fear of bullies
9
The age a girl’s self esteem peaks
9
The age I was called fat for the first time
16
Stop building armies in your mouth.
Stop using your words as warfare and shooting me with four letter bullets.
Build castles with your tongue and let others stand upon them.
16
Spill your heart from your mouth.
Do not destroy what is beautiful. See more than what is ugly.
If you need rose colored glasses to see each person as a glass half full of “do not dehumanize me” so be it.
16
You are a vessel and the things inside of you are so much more important than your frame. 
Make others know that.
Make yourself know that.