Barbed Wired Bully

"Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. Bully victims are 9 times more likely to consider suicide."

Please take your medicine,

       your darkness is devouring my sight

what were you expecting, 

             i tried to break your fall

long silences and outbursts of pure rancid evil

bones splintered to the core

                           of lunatic's withdrawal

loose cannons of barbed wire wrap around my mind

i woke up yesterday with a tombstone in my eyes

             crushed up glass in my coffee instead of creamer

rolled over to pretend I was still asleep in your head

               no time to waste on being devoured on a thread

staring down the barrel of an intentional plinker 

              sleeping with my own Baretta on lock & load

balancing this bird on a razor wire of slick crystal write

             it's slipping away, was a little too late for cake

power of the darkness is terse & tensely overwhelming

               drowning in the murky waters of past wastelands

there are no wildflower posy's left to be sowed

 still holding on to that final letter of reality to conquer insanity

Recent School Bullying and Cyberbullying Statistics Show That:

• 1 out of 4 kids are Bullied.
• 77% of students are bullied mentally, verbally, & physically. Cyberbullying statistics are rapidly approaching similar numbers, with 43% experiencing cyberbullying.
• Of the 77% of students that said they had been bullied, 14% of those who were bullied said they experienced severe (bad) reactions to the abuse.
• 1 in 5 students admit to being a bully, or doing some "Bullying."
• Each day 160,000 students miss school for fear of being bullied.
• 43% of kids fear harassment in the bathroom at school.
• 100,000 students carry a gun to school.
• 28% of youths who carry weapons have witnessed violence at home.
• 282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month.
• More youth violence occurs on school grounds as opposed to on the way to school.
• Playground school bullying statistics - Every 7 minutes a child is bullied. Adult intervention - 4%. Peer intervention - 11%. No intervention - 85%.

http://www.a4kclub.org/get-the-facts/bullying-statistics

Author's Note

Reviews

[Gypsy Warrior Queen]

My Oldest child was bullied and I will probably say that I was bullied by her father and that is why she found it acceptable. she, with a much quieter nature than my own quivered in fear each day and took on the twisted mental state of her boyfriend..the bully-er. She thought if she acted out she could get him help but it consumed her and she got so dark in her own depression I thought I might lose her. She stole, lied, became a cutter..ect ect. she is better now, but never fully recovered from those two years. Thank you Freida for posting this! For letting the statistics be heard! It is SO scary! You did an AMAZING job!

[Frieda P]

I hear you, my father was a bully also, he used to push us around and my mother was scared to death of him, but she's still with the b*****d, go figure....thanks for your thoughts here Queenie, glad she made it through that horror....

[Barbara Walker]

"no time to waste being devoured on a thread" those endless threads that can't be tied up, do you think if we ignored them, they would unravel, as useless as they are? What a waste of time and space, both on the page and in our lives. Great poem on a sad subject.

[Frieda P]

Thanks Barbara, and I have none of the answers, just know I'm outraged....

[Mark]

My son was a big kid (now a big adult). In his senior year, a smaller kid constantly harrassed him verbally for over three months. Egging him on to hit, calling him names, constantly nipping at my son's heels. The class he was in was a Criminal Justice class taught by local cops who did nothing.

Chris finally caught the kid off campus and pounded on him. The kid ran to the school and complained so my son had to go to anger management classes and was berated by one of the cop 'teachers' threatened with jail time. Not one word was said to his accuser.

The cops, the principal shrugged it off when I confronted them about this kid. Bullying takes many forms.

[Frieda P]

That's sad Mark, sorry, there are no good solutions it seems, thanks for your thoughts here my friend.

[Ohhhwillow]

The flow of this poem is very different.. It most definitely suits your sharp, cunning word choice Frieda. :) This is great. The imagery you present, of waking up with tombstones in your eyes.. Well it couldn't have been done better. Bullying is something that we all assume everyone would avoid doing, however of course, there are always the 'type A' personnel whom feel the need to shrink others. The majority of us have unfortunately felt the crushing power bullying has on our lives.. And that's something that should never be merely 'accepted' as human nature. Greg job Frieda. I've missed your courageous writes

[Ohhhwillow]

*great, oops, sorry! Typo!

[Frieda P]

Crushing power, exactly...most feel helpless under the blow, thanks for your thoughts here Willow.

[Ohhhwillow]

My pleasure as always Frieda! Feeling helpless is the most awful thing.. And if anything can be done to prevent it, then that measure should be taken. Oh you have the concern of an angel! :)

[Ohhhwillow]

Also, you may like the song Bully by Shinedown, it is very inspirational! :)

[B-poet]

Bullying is a no win situation for the bully because sooner or later he will eventually get a taste of his own medicine. Nice work. I liked the picture of the birds on the sloped wire as well. :)

[Frieda P]

Thanks Bpoet, muchly appreciated. :-)

[s y e]

Ugh, I absolutely hate bullying in general. Bullying is N O T right and no one should think that it is. Schools are terrible for this and sometimes / most of the time there is nothing the teachers can do because they don't listen.

dєtєntíσn does nothing so there is no point 'cause when after that they think they are off the hook and do it again. It's kinda like 'Once a cheat, always a cheat' only its 'Once a bully, always a bully' most of the time, some people can change.

ємαιℓѕ тσ ραяєитѕ ~ Well this does nothing. So what, they get there phone taken off them for a couple days then they get it back again. Meh, does nothing.

¢у�™єя �™υℓℓуιиg is absolute crap! This is one of the reasons I don't have FaceBook or anything. One I don't want it and two I wouldn't want it 'cause it causes so many problems. I'd rather stick to myself and all.

This was a real, honest write, Frieda. You've written it really well.

αwєsσmє �™lσssσm!

~ Noodle.

[Frieda P]

It's a real problem, and many fall prey to it, sometimes unknowingly...thanks Sye.

[s y e]

It happened to me but I was too shy quiet and let them.

[annie lee]

I know about bullying first-hand. I've fought my way through it in my childhood, adolescence and adult life. The fact that my daughter suffered from the same inane attacks caused me to visit her schools many times to explain the finer points of "Assault & Battery" to them. I think we MUST intervene. If bullies get tacit approval from their parents or peers, how will the cretins understand that what they are doing is literally a crime, morally a sin and socially disgusting. I agree with you that it is evil, and what is worse, it plants the seed for greater capacity of evil in the bully. I think it's everyone's job to stop this when we see it. Cyber-bullies are the worst because they can hide behind the Web.
Your poem is a gut-level and explicit indictment of those who bully and those who stand by and watch. The language is trembling with passion and cannot fail to miss its mark. The trouble is, most of the marks are so stupid that they don't get it. That's when we should be allowed to use Thor's hammer to get the message across.
A strongly written piece.

[Frieda P]

Thank you so much for your thoughts here, much appreciate your take on this on, what to do about the cretins still remains in question, only seems to get worse. I can't find the statistics for kids that have taken their life due to this injustice but I'm pretty sure the numbers are phenomenal.

[kublakhan27]

This was originally gonna be a two-word review, saying I sympathize, but as usual, you compel me to revel in your poetry beyond simple observations...this is the best take I believe I've ever read on the subject...I always thought that the biggest compliment one writer can give another writer is that they wish they wrote the other's work themselves, and I wish I wrote this one...you tapped a nerve with this one my dear, but I'm so glad you did.

[Frieda P]

Thanks for this glowing review Steve, and yes, that is probably the best compliment a writer can get and coming from you it makes it even more special my dear friend.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

"i woke up with a tombstone in my eyes"

this is heavy stuff Frieda...but then you go after any topic with a fierceness and freshness that abounds...

i too dealt with this in grade school..it is not fun to be the one bullied, that's for sure.

well penned protest against those who would do this...

jacob

[Frieda P]

Thanks so much for your kind words jacob, you humble me. I've seen it happen as early as pre-k, it's really a problem....

[gabrielle]

i've been bullied in my younger years, it only stopped when i stood and fought back. as i read news, i observed that forms of bullying are becoming more serious and destructive these days. the statistics you provided is very alarming, it gave me the impression that bullying is already part of our culture. This is so sad.
very creative and informative piece. Thank you for sharing this, Frieda.

[Frieda P]

Very sad gabrielle, so many people can relate to this, what prompted it originally is a friend of mine I made on another site that lives in the UK, her son's friend found his brother who had committed suicide due to online bullying, he is only 9, his brother was a mere 11 years old. There will always be bullies among us I'm afraid, it needs to end...thanks for your thoughts here.

[Samuel Jack]

It is evil, but "pure" evil, I don't think so. I was bullied in school and after years of thinking about it and studying human behaviour, I believe bullying comes from our primal tribal Instincts, whenever people do anything now (good or bad) I think how would that benefit them in a tribal context. Bully's aren't evil, just f*****g stupid. Good poem, sadly something a lot of people can relate to, especially your anger and venom that leaks out of the words.

[Frieda P]

Thanks Samuel, I didn't like the way 'f*****g stupid' sounded in the poem, I still think they're evil....tribal or not, we've come a long way since then....supposedly anyway!

[Samuel Jack]

So you were tempted to put it like that :)
you know my stance on humanity, forever bitterly disappointed.

[Frieda P]

Life ain't fair, we'll agree on that one ;-)