Don't Know Where This is Headed . . .

I told myself I'd never end up doing this, but for some time I've been feeling like posting poetry that is not my own. It's actually lyrics from a song by Chevelle called The Red. Like I said, I didn't want to do this, mostly because if a stranger wanders into my page, I want to reassure them that the writings on this page are my own . . . but I suppose now that's not completely true.

*shrug*

Oh well, it's my post. Guess I'll do whatever the heck I want with it. Here it is:

The Red

They say freak

When you're singled out

The red, well it filters through

So lay down, the threat is real

When his sight goes red again

Seeing red again, Seeing red again

This change

He won't contain

Slip away, to clear your mind

When asked

Who made it show

The truth, he gives in to most

So lay down, the threat is real

When his sight goes red again

Seeing red again, Seeing red again.

Anyways, that's it. For reasons even I don't fully understand, it's one of my very favourite songs. I suppose I can relate to it, and ever since I first heard it, I pictured more than just an anger management issue (see the music video, if you can track it down). I've always pictured this song being about the Columbine shootings, although I don't know if that's what the band had in mind when they wrote it or not.

I guess this song reminds me of my early Elementary school days, before Grade Five. To say I was an angry youngster would be putting it mildly. But I didn't just start out that way, of course. I had moved to High Prairie in Grade Two, and was still under the innocent perception that the world was a good place, full of nothing but good people.

Before I go further, I suppose I should explain something for any strangers reading this. I have a cleft lip, and during my childhood (before I received corrective surgeries) this left my nose deformed and a very noticeable scar perforated my upper lip.

When I had lived in Edmonton, my teachers had gone to great lengths to ensure I fit in as easily as possible. They introduced me to the classes and explained in easy terms why I looked different. The teachers there realized that children can single out a single physical flaw and be merciless in their ridicule of it. This understanding was sadly lacking in High Prairie. I very quickly learned that children can be incredibly cruel. Even the kids you would assume would be above such things, the "good kids", would join in and make an outsider's life hell.

Within a year, I had learned that I was not a welcome addition to the class that had been together since Preschool. I learned that because I was a pudgy child, and my cleft lip singled me out, I was the easiest source of fun for all the bullies, and other children learned that it was far easier to ridicule me than to simply ignore all of this (or put a stop to it). I became very bitter and angry, not just at those who made fun of me, but at everything and everyone. The person I blamed the most though, was myself.

By the time I was in Grade Four, I already had so much hatred built up towards everyone in my class that I would come home and play with my action figures, pretending that Casey Jones or the G.I. Joes were the people who'd been mean to me lately. Grinding them into the dirt, dropping heavy objects on them, and throwing them up against the wall of the house was about all I could do for destructiveness, but I started to wish I could do something to the people themselves.

Actually, my rage became so focused on the kids in my class that I couldn't even tell who my real enemies were anymore. I ended up directing my impotent anger on every kid in class, whether it was justified or not. At the time, I just wished I could either hurt them, or have it all end. I never truly entertained thoughts of mass-killing (and Columbine was still years away, remember), but I think that I was saved from that path.

The thing that saved me from doing things I could never undo? It seems rather trite to say it, but it was a single act of kindness that became a friendship. All it took to break the cycle was one student who was separate from the mass cruelty that was my grade. She moved to High Prairie from another town, and didn't know (or perhaps just didn't care) that I was the social outcast. She befriended me, and I was so used to being ostracized by everyone around me that I clung to her kindness; I was terrified to let go, lest it disappear like the dream I believed it to be.

But no, I found we had quite a bit in common, for being in Grade Four. Through Grade Five, we developed our friendship, and I found that a good deal of my anger had dissipated. I still suffer from insecurity relating to my childhood, and I find it particularly difficult to keep a positive self-image, but the intense anger and helpless rage I once had was almost completely gone. It is for this reason that I still attribute my current place in life to this friend. Whether she realized it or not (before now), I have always truly felt like she saved my life. Who knows what might have been, if not for kindness?

I didn't know where my rambling would lead when I started this.

. . . So, I suppose I come around to it now. Thank you, Blue. And I could never say it enough; "Thank you!" Although I'm sure you never realized the extent of things, you really have made an incredible difference in my life. I had hoped to get around to telling you this story in person, but things just kind of poured out tonight. *sorry! ^_^*