Head Down, No Eye Contact

It wasn't always this way. Actually, I used to talk so much you couldn't shut me up. And then grade 2 happened and I had to learn how to deal with a bully. I was easy to pick on because I wasn't from the area and I was smart. I almost refuse to see the bad in people. This is an issue you see, because you can be preyed on in school when you befriend the kids that no one else wants to befriend and try to be kind to everyone. You because a target for bullying. You become a victim trying to help other kids that needed friends. And you lose confidence.

I figured out how to cope. Keep your head down, don't respond and never make eye contact. Ever. Try to become invisible. Try to disappear. You never will, but you can try. You can tell the teachers, but they are powerless unless administration backs them. So you stay quiet in the halls and outside and hope that no one comes near you and does anything to you.

The name calling and the antics that everyone else laughs at and says are no big deal never stop and it starts to break you down. You leave that school for a new high school where you know no one. You make friends. They have friends already and you feel like a bit of an outsider, but you are safer and you can find people that have the same ideals as you. You are safe.

Then you leave. You have to leave and you choose to go downtown. The school is smaller; safer. You are in the program you want to be in, you are learning lots. And then you walk. You walk to the library downtown. It's big and it's quiet and there is free WiFi. You walk 5 or 6 blocks and people ask you for money. You don't have small change, so you walk. You pull your toque down lower you bow your head. You become invisible again. You use your talent to protect yourself and this time it works.

So you walk more and whenever you walk you see the same man. You sometimes buy him water or coffee. He sits there everyday, asking for anything. You remember what you were taught; people just want a drink and some food. They are people. You give him that sometimes. He never asks you, he never expects anything of you. But he's there everyday and it can be hot sometimes and he must be dehydrated, so you give him some cold water.

There are questions you want to ask. You want to ask them on different forums; ask different people. There seems to be no room for discussion though. No room for learning, for collaboration. So you don't ask, you don't learn because you're afraid. You're afraid that people will not hear you again; that you will be invisible. You just don't understand everything and you want to learn, but having a discussion seems impossible because the world is coloured in shades of grey and yet sometimes it seems to only be seen in black and white.

And once again you put your head down, your earbuds in, pull your toque lower and walk faster because there is no way to understand something with no discussion, no way for a young person to understand, so you instead try to hid, try to turn invisible. It has done you well in life so far.