Retrospection

They toss a careless word like a grenade And watch as it explodes, Tearing me apart on the inside They hurl insults like spears, And they let taunts fly like a flight of arrows Tearing through my tough skin in the hopes of drawing blood In the face of the onslaught, I retreat To my inner sanctuary, The only refuge from the war of hate. His Rotundity, Fat Face, Cow, These are the names I know And am labeled by They are heaped upon me in a huge mass Until the weight drags me down And something snaps within. I move with resolve to change my fate To mold myself in to something better But is it? I see myself in the mirror Fit, lean, the model of health Well-liked and never the victim But I in shaping myself I have become a weapon An example of success of those hateful words I have become something else Disdained my individuality For superficial gratification I thought I was proving them wrong But, in truth, in rising to their challenges I began something else, something foreign. And so they won the war.