‘Quiet Kid'

Maybe the reason you stopped was because you failed to impress yourself, you thought you had more in you. Maybe it was your upbringing, you weren’t treated well growing up. Maybe the community created by it fueled your ego and gave you the adrenaline you so sought. I hope you felt good when you called me a skeleton, When you sat with me at lunch and bonded over shared interests only to later use it as a mockery when other people were around because it made them laugh. I hope you were brought some kind of closure from making someone else feel the way you felt. I hope you strengthened fake friendships by using ours as a way to embarrass me for their amusement. I genuinely believe, though, that you never thought it was actually hurting me. It helps a little now knowing that you were too emotionally unintelligent to see how you affected me. But still I wonder, would you have cared if you knew? In some ways maybe you were right in your criticisms of me, As I would never have the guts to tell you the tears I wept every night because of you. You still don’t know, and it will likely stay that way. The worst part is how much you skewed my childhood, which in turn will affect me for years to come. Now I have to think over and over before speaking, afraid that I’ll be judged and ridiculed if I say something that could possibly be open to being prodded at. You put me in a place where I can’t make friends because I feel threatened by every minor offense someone makes towards me, as I already subconsciously believe that I am less than. You turned me into the "quiet kid” so you could mock the stereotype that I am. Life has gotten better since middle school, but I will never know what it could have been without you.