Backpack

I was never the most popular girl in school

i didn't have designer clothes

i wasn't gorgeous

i was pretty plain

and somehow

that made me the butt of everyone's jokes

 

at first

i didn't let it get to me

i was confident in myself

i thought,

"those people don't even know me"

 

then it got so much worse

they would come at me from every angle

with everything they had

everything in their arsenal of hatred

they threw on top of me

and it was so heavy

i carried a backpack

of names, hits, kicks, and things they threw at me

and i was to weak to carry it all

 

i had a friend

who offered to take it from me for a while

and let me rest

i took it off and let it rest in his lap

and as he looked through the contents inside

he said to me,

"everything in here

is a lie...

all these beatings

are what make you stronger...

and those rocks and balls they've thrown at you?

well, you caught them with open arms."

 

he dumped the fillings onto the ground

and handed the empty bag back to me

"you can't let such silly things

get inside you,"

he said

"they eat your insides

and you turn

into an empty shell."

 

he looked into the air

and handed me the words he had just spoken

i stared down at them

and put them into my backpack

and for the first time

in a long time

i smiled

a true, genuine smile

 

the words were weightless

and so was i

as i floated through the air

and i rested on a cloud-

my backpack

my story