A poem about bullying: “As the popular girls mock you”

I wasn’t sure whether this poem about bullying needed an introduction or not. It’s about the impact that bullies had on my experience of secondary school. I have been worrying for quite some time now, about how Bunny will cope at secondary school. I don’t want her to be a victim to bullies or the “it crowd”, like I was. But as a Mum I have to accept that it’s something which is out of my control. I just have to trust that my daughter will come to me and tell me if something like that happens. I was very close to my mum as a child and she was brilliant with getting it resolved when I was bullied. The problem was, I didn’t tell her about all of it. How could I? There were 20-30 kids in the popular crowd – was I supposed to report them all? Would it have made things any better? I found coping strategies and friends who stuck by me instead, but I was weak really. I didn’t deal with it in the right way at all.

Today I walked into my 11 year old daughter’s secondary school, on just her 8th day in her first year at the school (year 7) and I reported her first bully. Never did I dream that it would happen so soon and I am gutted for her that she is beginning secondary school like this. She came home on her first day of secondary school in tears and the rest of the first week wasn’t much better. Nor the second week. A girl is going around telling people that Bunny is ugly and has no friends and that people shouldn’t talk to her. She has recruited a boy to join her and the pair of them pull faces, say nasty things and mess with Bunny’s hair on the bus. It’s not true of course. Bunny is a pretty girl and she has lots of friends, but that doesn’t stop it hurting, when her bully is actively trying to recruit others to gang up on her.

I am hoping that the school nip this in the bud and that Bunny can begin to enjoy her new school and her adolescent years.

It has prompted me to share this poem about bullying, which I wrote a few weeks ago. It’s somewhat raw and not perfectly edited, because it came straight from the heart. It’s self explanatory and probably didn’t need all of this introduction, but there you go.

“As the popular girls mock you”

As the popular girls mock you
For your clothes or the way you style your hair
Don’t let them strip you of your childhood
Leave you with the lonely feeling of despair.
And don’t be one of them either
Bullying others to make themselves feel good
They’re just jealous you see
Angry at the world and misunderstood

My mum was amazing when I was bullied
I love her with all my heart
But I didn’t tell her about ALL of it
How those girls ripped my adolescence apart.
When I sat crying in my room
On oh so many a night
She thought I was studying, listening to music
Knowing nothing of my plight.
I cried into poetry
An outlet for my broken heart
Sobbed through albums on my CD player
I just didn’t fit the part.

If I did my homework
They’d pick on me, tease me, take my chair, hide my bag.
Couldn’t let them see me cry,
So I’d turn to cider, weed or light up a fag.
To avoid detention I’d bunk off,
Hide, freezing in a hedge,
Anything to avoid the bullies,
I was living on the edge.
Better to take the wrath,
Of an angry year head – for work not done,
Than be the geek
The freak, the unpopular one.

Then one day my period started
The dreaded, unpredictable hormones come.
All the other girls had boobs
And called me a boy because I had none.
I’m fearing for you already
I have worried since you were ten
This is secondary school and I feel I’ll go through it with you
I’ll be reliving it all again.

I hope and pray you’ll have the courage
To come to me and talk it through
Tell me your worries, your pain, your hopes
And that I’m a good enough mother to help you through
I want you to be stronger
Braver, prouder, more confident than I was that young
I didn’t find my fight until I became your mum
Maybe your teenage years could be more fun?