© 2018 Barbara Grace Lake

 

This child much later grew to teens
Still immature in female growth
Cruel taunts of classmates targeted
Her skinny legs unbudded chest

In middle school, the insults changed
Now worst from girls instead of boys
She often walked three miles to home
deterring vicious bus-ride jeers

Some words so scary that she trod
On altered paths to help avoid
A brutish hulking girl who vowed
She’d take abuse to violence

But friend she found in late eighth grade,
Her people moved from out of state,
Too big to bully, smart to care
About foul words meant to demean

Her native Oklahoma drawl
“It’s how I talk, why should I change”
And so this child began to learn
That insults hurt but never kill