The Boy With No Face

How my mind has blocked one of bullies' face.

How do I describe

My mounting anger

And frustration

When I have flashbacks

About you?

 

I can remember

Everything

Except your face

Which is

A total void

To me.

 

Why is it

I have retained

Your life's minutia?

 

How your body looks like

Sound of your voice

And laughter

Or your parents' marital status.

 

And yet

Your face remains

A mystery.

 

When I can remember

The faces of the other boys

Who bullied me

With your aid.

 

What makes you

So special

For this

To happen?

 

Wish

I knew.

Author's Note

Originally written, April 4, 2014.

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

Wow. Amazing how our mind blocks things from our heart in an attempt to protect us. Its not that he is special - its that you are. And you don't deserve to carry the pain. You deserve to be free of it. I remember pretty much every antagonist in my life in great detail, and the actions against me. I suppose it it is why externally I have a reputation for being a hard*ss. But inside sometimes I am still a child.

[therisa]

Thank you, Tammy, for your very supportive words. Its been 30 years, since the last time, he bullied me.

[Rene Salinas]

Someone very close to me after nearly 15 years since the inscident she still gets horrible nightmares and dissociative experiences as a consequence of abuse/ bullying. It got to legal involvement and there was some kind of resoluion bu how about the ones that never get to be seen?
Your lines cut across with a non violent demure yet the words themselves are atrocious in its implications.

What goes around comes around?

Thankyou

[therisa]

Rene, I hope your friend finds, the peace, she deserves, from her experience. I wish I could say, I got the last laugh, against those, who bullied/abused me, but I haven't. I got memories that are, over 30 years old, of abusive behaviour, by other kids.

[Lyn Anderson]

I understand this. My worst bully I remember everything about her, but not clearly what she looked like. We block out what we must so we can sleep at night, I think, I don't know. Mine was a girl -- who led a pack of mostly boys. It is a difficult thing, living with these demons. One thing, though, it has made me uber aware of it with my kids. No daughter of mine will bully, or be bullied, of that I will make sure ...

[therisa]

Thank you, KL. I hate to think, what my childhood would be like, today, given cyberbullying is, now, added to the mix. I know, I had hard enough time, growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, with the physical and emotional attacks, I endured.

[Lyn Anderson]

I agree, however, I was in a very small town. There wasn't a place I could go, a restaurant, or even my own home, where the bullies wouldn't taunt me. They used to go in the parking lot across the street and yell in my window, or nab me in a public washroom in a restaurant. My main bully asked to friend me a few years ago on facebook. I ignored the request. Some things just don't make sense.

[therisa]

I can relate to this, KL, as I started my schooling, in a village of 2,000 people, in Wellington county. They used to chase me, from the school to the doorstep, of my home.

[Lyn Anderson]

Very similar experience. I am sorry to hear that, but sadly, not surprised.

[MomzillaNC]

Faceless terror still has the power to make us tremble. When we put name and form to the fear, we can and do overcome it.

[therisa]

Momzillia, this "boy" pounded the snot out of me, and made my life, a living Hell, before he moved away, at the start of Grade 8. And yet, I sort his friendship, even knowing, what it would entail for me.

[MomzillaNC]

My mother "beat the snot" out of my for most of my childhood and all of my adolescence. I never stopped seeking her approval and love, never stopped hoping for something better between us.

[therisa]

The things, we do, to have a sense of belonging.

[MomzillaNC]

IKR? How can it be so hard to show a little kindness?

[therisa]

Sadly, some people don't have, within themselves, to share anything, but hate.

[MomzillaNC]

While I agree that it seems that way, even a wicked man may know how to love his own family.

[MomzillaNC]

It really comes down, in most cases, to people not being able to think outside their own skins.

[therisa]

True, Momzilla, but it's a learned trait, to show your fears and angers, to those, who you don't understand.

[MomzillaNC]

Actually, those children on the playground may sound uncomplicated and not bound by our adult prejudices. The truth is, kids are cruel in ways adults seldom have the courage to be deliberately cruel. Those playground scenes are only idyllic from a distance.

Have you read, LORD OF THE FLIES? It's really rather accurate. Your own tale, told here in this poem, demonstrates how vicious kids really are. Compassion and understanding are the learned traits.

[therisa]

Sadly, no, Momzilla.

[MomzillaNC]

We had to read it in high school. I'm not really recommending it. I hated that book. But, it's chock full of hard, bald examinations of the cruelty and mob mentality of children.

[therisa]

Don't need a book to describe this, to me, given the reality, I have experienced growing up.

[MomzillaNC]

Same here. That's one of the reasons I disliked the book so much. I would imagine you had it much worse physically than I did among kids at school. Boys were always so physically cruel and vicious. Girls tend more to emotional and psychological torments.

[therisa]

I got it, both way, emotionally and physically, from my bullies.

[MomzillaNC]

Everyone talks about ending bullying… the plain, unvarnished truth is that bullying will always continue to happen out the sight of adults. And, as long as class sizes keep going up while staff numbers keep declining, and creative/intellect building activities are eliminated, there is little to be done. The answer to bullying and so much of our problems in schools is smaller classes, more teachers, and more constructive activities. My experience has been that the kids who are too busy to fall in with the wrong crowd are the ones who are NOT getting into trouble. My son's class was 20 at the start of the last school year. Now it's 30. And, his teacher last year had an aide all day. Now, his teacher doesn't even have an aide for part of the day. And no textbooks! He's in the fifth grade and does not have a single text book! Not even an e-book!

[therisa]

That's not right, Momzilla, your son doesn't have any textbooks (printed or electronic). Is your schoolboard struggling with finances? I know, the schoolboards around me, are struggling with ESL and special needs programs.

[MomzillaNC]

Our schools are struggle with the Thom Tillis agenda. He cuts and cuts and cuts education, but gives protection and tax breaks to private jet owners.

[MomzillaNC]

I really wish I could afford private school for him. I'm much afraid he's being trampled by a system ill-equipped to deal with children who are just too brilliant and too distractible for the over-worked, under paid, understaffed, overwhelmed teachers and staff in public school.

[therisa]

Ouch, Momzilla. Am sorry you and your son has to experience this neglect of the education system. Amazing, in a brutally sad way, things haven't changed much, since the 1970s, when I faced similar problems, myself, with my learning disabilities and being smarter than my classmates. I hate the speech therapy sessions, I had to attend, off and on, from kindergarten to grade 7.

[MomzillaNC]

I had speech therapy too. I actually didn't mind it. My issue was stuttering from quite debilitating shyness (trapped in our secrets, shyness seems to be the public persona we're left with); so the speech therapy really did help.

[therisa]

My speech therapy was, to retrain my muscles around my mouth area, damaged by, a severe electrical burn, when I was 4 years old.

[MomzillaNC]

I imagine that was quite painful therapy, then. I hope you wrote then as well, and had your written words to comfort you.

[therisa]

Most of these memories are still hidden behind mental walls. I have flashbacks, of the electrical burn, which are sensory, in nature. But the odd time, I do relive that November night, in 1974.

[MomzillaNC]

I've had trouble with suppressed memories too. It's so painful when you unearth them. But, ultimately, it's the path to healing.

[therisa]

Writing is, one way of dealing, with these suppressed memories.

[MomzillaNC]

That's why we keep writing.