You, sir, have had the biggest impact on who I am.

You have stamped your mark with red ink, straight across my entire page.

 

You are the playground’s bully.

You will happily tear down anyone, especially when a soft underbelly is exposed.

You are a toddler knocking down the blocks of my self-confidence.

 

Instead of watering my garden, you infect it with weeds. Crabgrass roots encroach on my daisies.

You claim to want to watch your scholars’ growth, but you seem to only want to see how much I can shrink.

 Do I scare you?

Does my possible potential put pathetic fears in your head that I might grow bigger than your own daughter?

 

Lord knows that I won’t let you take credit for any of my accomplishments, you are no ghost writer.

Any good chapters I have ever jotted down on my makeshift notepad were not written using your pen. If anything, you tried to syphon out my ink.

 

Perhaps it is because you could never find enough success to get you out of the small county that you were born in, or maybe because you want to eliminate anyone else’s chances of doing so, out of spite or just pure jealousy, but tell me:

how can a grown man of 43 drag down a young girl like me?

 

You have made your mark on me like a pencil on paper.

 But luckily, I hold the eraser, and negativity will not ooze off the pages of

MY book.

 I will lift those who can’t lift themselves and support those who limp.

 My heart will beat encouragement through all four of its powerful chambers.

 So, thank you.

Not for making me who I am, but for showing me what I don’t want to become.