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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Biography / Autobiography
- Published: 01/28/2012
EIGHT TIMES AS MUCH
Born 1952, F, from Penrose, Colorado, United States.jpg)
All you hear on the news today is about bullying, helping
Those who are bullied. Let me tell you, I’ve
Been bullied all my life and there was no one
Ever to come to my rescue. As a young child,
Even up to young womanhood, as here,
Teachers didn’t care; the principal only
Suspended all of us, not just the
Perpetrators. And if my parents
Did believe my stories about
Getting bullied, they turned
It around: “Susan, what did YOU
Do to provoke THEM?”
Teachers told me to change
My bus line, take another path
Home, on lunch recess, eat
Outside instead of the cafeteria
Or vice versa. They wanted ME
To rearrange my life to accommodate
My Perpetrators. Today
We’re supposed to listen
To kids, take them seriously.
Why didn’t anyone ever
Adopt that attitude when
I was bullied from a child
To womanhood?
Where were you all, then?
Thanks a lot, no thanks to you,
I survived, but not without taking
A few down with me.
The story below
(accompanied by an
Embellished Poem
whose concept
I actually thought of
As a child, bullied)
Is true. I’m not proud of what
Transpired. But in any fight,
When you’re forced into it
Against your will,
What do you do? You
Fight to Win, and you take
No Survivors.
Melinda, as you look in the mirror
Today, I hope you realize
YOU made the decision and forced
Me to protect myself.
You or me, that’s what any
Fight comes down to.
Well, I still have all the teeth
In my head to prove
I'm right
I walked into the gym locker room to change my clothes for Track practice. We had an event coming up Saturday, our Grace King Freshman High Monthly Track Meet Competition, and I was looking forward to it. Our Freshman Year Class in all the sport competition categories had a real good chance of winning this year’s overall trophy and if I had anything individually to do with it, I was going to give it my all. I couldn’t speak for any of the other girls, but I was going to make sure Susan Joyner was on her A-game. I looked around, wondering where the rest of my team was. Probably running late. I knew it was raining today and we couldn’t practice outside, but it didn’t matter. We had this football field sized indoor gymnasium arena where events were held, anyway, when increment weather was predicted for the forecasts. I shoved my clothes in my locker and slammed it shut, the metal against metal echoing eerily down the hall. As I turned around, I heard a sudden eruption of commotion coming down the aisle and thought to myself, it’s about time you guys got here.
“There she is.” It was Melinda, my arch rival. For some reason, Melinda hated me intensely though I’m quite sure I never gave her reason to. If I had, I would have owned it, but I think she just had a mean-streak that worked in constant over-drive. On the rare occasions she would allow a two-way conversation, I tried to convince her to join our track team; I thought she could channel some of that meanness into a positive cause. That only pissed her off even further, so I just gave it up.
“Yeah, hey.” I tried to move past her, but she outstretched her arms which prevented further moving forward.
“Were you expecting somebody else?”
“Not really,” I said. I noticed she kept looking behind her and I didn’t know why, it seemed she and I were alone here. “Just waiting on the rest of the team.”
“You think you’re a valuable player Susan?”
“I hope I am. I mean, I try my best.”
I had a plastic thermos with iced water. She knocked it out of my hands.
“What the f ---“
“What did you say, Susie?” She shoved me back. I almost lost my footing but caught myself.
“C’mon, Melinda ~”
“C’mon, what?” And from seemingly out of nowhere, her reinforcements, her girl-muscle, literally appeared out of the metal work, two came up from around the corner behind her and two behind me.
“You’re a Track Star, bitch, what ya ‘gonna do now? Run the 100 meter?” Another voice behind me tauntingly hissed.
I swung around. “Who you calling…” and some heavy object came down across the side of my head. At that point, I proceeded into a blind rage, Whatever the object was, it was mine now and I started swinging as the flesh of fists met me every other which way. Iron object, fists, iron object, tit for tat, it seemed. My white gym suit dripped crimson, but I wasn’t the only one bleeding. I got a few good solid strikes in as well in that swirling vortex blur of blonde, black and auburn hair that shamefully became a tangled net of smeared fury and lip-gloss.
I may have gone down that day of infamy, but I brought a few down with me. The last thing I remembered was sighing to myself, thinking, here I am, taking one for the Team, but this fight sadly will not end up in a lighted Curio showcased in our High School Trophy Room. I lost count of the many times I pleaded for Melinda to channel that unfathomable energy elsewhere. Too bad she didn’t listen…I took out both her upper and lower teeth. Maybe others forgot this day, but Melinda will forever remember this unfortunate day as she looks back, licking those life-long dentures.
EIGHT TIMES AS MUCH
You would take your sticks and stones,
go home the way you came
an injured warrior accustomed
to bleeding
but would survive to be
humiliated another day.
Sun at your back
dry river bed ahead
thirsty all the long, hard way
high water of the safety net
will drown some other day.
No quietude here!!
mother wails ~
dad yells ~
and baby brother does what
babies do best: sings the blues.
Enemies lined up along the
lavender lip of the horizon
shifting silhouettes of bayonets
and garbage eyes
here to take you down
~so they say ~
one last time!
Ready or not, lift your melancholy
sword that sweeps the air like reluctant velvet
in front of a mind-bending medieval world
where even pet mongrels come out to play.
Spectators off in the banisters
stomp the dust without mercy
sing epitaphs with no remorse
today’s your lucky day
~so they say ~
to die beneath a thousand hungry stars
when the chant starts “off with your head.”
where’s your backup plan, the unicorn
to whisk your victorious pride away ~ ~
Oh, if only Merlin were here to share
the feast of magic, to watch as you
turn each one of them into spiders.
Gravel meets your departing boots.
No sense in turning around ~
you know they have to cry
eight times as much ~
yes, their tears are eight times as much
because a spider has eight eyes.
And you wonder, still, if that’s enough…
© Susan Joyner-Stumpf
EIGHT TIMES AS MUCH(Susan Joyner-Stumpf)
All you hear on the news today is about bullying, helping
Those who are bullied. Let me tell you, I’ve
Been bullied all my life and there was no one
Ever to come to my rescue. As a young child,
Even up to young womanhood, as here,
Teachers didn’t care; the principal only
Suspended all of us, not just the
Perpetrators. And if my parents
Did believe my stories about
Getting bullied, they turned
It around: “Susan, what did YOU
Do to provoke THEM?”
Teachers told me to change
My bus line, take another path
Home, on lunch recess, eat
Outside instead of the cafeteria
Or vice versa. They wanted ME
To rearrange my life to accommodate
My Perpetrators. Today
We’re supposed to listen
To kids, take them seriously.
Why didn’t anyone ever
Adopt that attitude when
I was bullied from a child
To womanhood?
Where were you all, then?
Thanks a lot, no thanks to you,
I survived, but not without taking
A few down with me.
The story below
(accompanied by an
Embellished Poem
whose concept
I actually thought of
As a child, bullied)
Is true. I’m not proud of what
Transpired. But in any fight,
When you’re forced into it
Against your will,
What do you do? You
Fight to Win, and you take
No Survivors.
Melinda, as you look in the mirror
Today, I hope you realize
YOU made the decision and forced
Me to protect myself.
You or me, that’s what any
Fight comes down to.
Well, I still have all the teeth
In my head to prove
I'm right
I walked into the gym locker room to change my clothes for Track practice. We had an event coming up Saturday, our Grace King Freshman High Monthly Track Meet Competition, and I was looking forward to it. Our Freshman Year Class in all the sport competition categories had a real good chance of winning this year’s overall trophy and if I had anything individually to do with it, I was going to give it my all. I couldn’t speak for any of the other girls, but I was going to make sure Susan Joyner was on her A-game. I looked around, wondering where the rest of my team was. Probably running late. I knew it was raining today and we couldn’t practice outside, but it didn’t matter. We had this football field sized indoor gymnasium arena where events were held, anyway, when increment weather was predicted for the forecasts. I shoved my clothes in my locker and slammed it shut, the metal against metal echoing eerily down the hall. As I turned around, I heard a sudden eruption of commotion coming down the aisle and thought to myself, it’s about time you guys got here.
“There she is.” It was Melinda, my arch rival. For some reason, Melinda hated me intensely though I’m quite sure I never gave her reason to. If I had, I would have owned it, but I think she just had a mean-streak that worked in constant over-drive. On the rare occasions she would allow a two-way conversation, I tried to convince her to join our track team; I thought she could channel some of that meanness into a positive cause. That only pissed her off even further, so I just gave it up.
“Yeah, hey.” I tried to move past her, but she outstretched her arms which prevented further moving forward.
“Were you expecting somebody else?”
“Not really,” I said. I noticed she kept looking behind her and I didn’t know why, it seemed she and I were alone here. “Just waiting on the rest of the team.”
“You think you’re a valuable player Susan?”
“I hope I am. I mean, I try my best.”
I had a plastic thermos with iced water. She knocked it out of my hands.
“What the f ---“
“What did you say, Susie?” She shoved me back. I almost lost my footing but caught myself.
“C’mon, Melinda ~”
“C’mon, what?” And from seemingly out of nowhere, her reinforcements, her girl-muscle, literally appeared out of the metal work, two came up from around the corner behind her and two behind me.
“You’re a Track Star, bitch, what ya ‘gonna do now? Run the 100 meter?” Another voice behind me tauntingly hissed.
I swung around. “Who you calling…” and some heavy object came down across the side of my head. At that point, I proceeded into a blind rage, Whatever the object was, it was mine now and I started swinging as the flesh of fists met me every other which way. Iron object, fists, iron object, tit for tat, it seemed. My white gym suit dripped crimson, but I wasn’t the only one bleeding. I got a few good solid strikes in as well in that swirling vortex blur of blonde, black and auburn hair that shamefully became a tangled net of smeared fury and lip-gloss.
I may have gone down that day of infamy, but I brought a few down with me. The last thing I remembered was sighing to myself, thinking, here I am, taking one for the Team, but this fight sadly will not end up in a lighted Curio showcased in our High School Trophy Room. I lost count of the many times I pleaded for Melinda to channel that unfathomable energy elsewhere. Too bad she didn’t listen…I took out both her upper and lower teeth. Maybe others forgot this day, but Melinda will forever remember this unfortunate day as she looks back, licking those life-long dentures.
EIGHT TIMES AS MUCH
You would take your sticks and stones,
go home the way you came
an injured warrior accustomed
to bleeding
but would survive to be
humiliated another day.
Sun at your back
dry river bed ahead
thirsty all the long, hard way
high water of the safety net
will drown some other day.
No quietude here!!
mother wails ~
dad yells ~
and baby brother does what
babies do best: sings the blues.
Enemies lined up along the
lavender lip of the horizon
shifting silhouettes of bayonets
and garbage eyes
here to take you down
~so they say ~
one last time!
Ready or not, lift your melancholy
sword that sweeps the air like reluctant velvet
in front of a mind-bending medieval world
where even pet mongrels come out to play.
Spectators off in the banisters
stomp the dust without mercy
sing epitaphs with no remorse
today’s your lucky day
~so they say ~
to die beneath a thousand hungry stars
when the chant starts “off with your head.”
where’s your backup plan, the unicorn
to whisk your victorious pride away ~ ~
Oh, if only Merlin were here to share
the feast of magic, to watch as you
turn each one of them into spiders.
Gravel meets your departing boots.
No sense in turning around ~
you know they have to cry
eight times as much ~
yes, their tears are eight times as much
because a spider has eight eyes.
And you wonder, still, if that’s enough…
© Susan Joyner-Stumpf
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Gordon England
03/12/2020you wandered all over the place with the beginning and end parts. Should have left those out
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