Bullying Speech Essay

Hello I’m Maddi Beeson as many of you know and I wanted to talk to you about a very important issue at our school. There is the problem of bullying and I would like to say something about it which will hopefully change things. Starting off with this poem I had found on the internet which is a very inspiring poem about bullying. It is called: To This Day- for the bullied and the beautiful by Shane Koyczan. When I was a kid I used to think that pork chops and karate chops Were the same thing I thought they were both pork chops And because my grandmother thought it was cute And because they were my favorite She let me keep doing it Not really a big deal One day Before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees I fell out of a tree And bruised the right side of my body I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it Because I was afraid I’d get in trouble For playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been A few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise And I got sent to the principal’s office From there I was sent to another small room With a really nice lady Who asked me all kinds of questions About my life at home I saw no reason to lie As far as I was concerned. Life was pretty good I told her, â€Å"Whenever I’m sad My grandmother gives me karate chops† This led to a full scale investigation And I was removed from the house for three days Until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school And I earned my first nickname Pork Chop To this day I hate pork chops I’m not the only kid Who grew up this way Surrounded by people who used to say That rhyme about sticks and stones As if broken bones Hurt more than the names we got called And we got called them all So we grew up believing no one Would ever fall in love with us That we’d be lonely forever That we’d never meet someone To make us feel like the sun Was something they built for us In their tool shed So broken heart strings bled the blues As we tried to empty ourselves. So we would feel nothing Don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone That an ingrown life Is something surgeons can cut away That there’s no way for it to metastasize It does She was eight years old Our first day of grade three When she got called ugly We both got moved to the back of the class So we would stop get bombarded by spit balls But the school halls were a battleground Where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day We used to stay inside for recess Because outside was worse Outside we’d have to rehearse running away Or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there In grade five they taped a sign to her desk That read beware of dog To this day Despite a loving husband She doesn’t think she’s beautiful Because of a birthmark That takes up a little less than half of her face Kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer That someone tried to erase But couldn’t quite get the job done And they’ll never understand That she’s raising two kids Whose definition of beauty Begins with the word mom Because they see her heart Before they see her skin Because she’s only ever always been amazing He Was a broken branch Grafted onto a different family tree Adopted Not because his parents opted for a different destiny He was three when he became a mixed drink Of one part left alone And two parts tragedy Started therapy in 8th grade Had a personality made up of tests and pills Lived like the up hills were mountains And the down hills were cliffs Four fifths suicidal A tidal wave of anti depressants And an adolescence of being called popper One part because of the pills Ninety nine parts because of the cruelty He tried to kill himself in grade ten When a kid who could still go home to mom and dad Had the audacity to tell him â€Å"get over it† as if depression Is something that can be remedied By any of the contents found in a first aid kit To this day He is a stick of TNT lit from both ends Could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends In the moments before it’s about to fall And despite an army of friends Who all call him an inspiration He remains a conversation piece between pe ople Who can’t understand Sometimes becoming drug free Has less to do with addiction And more to do with sanity We weren’t the only kids who grew up this way To this day Kids are still being called names The classics were Hey stupid Hey spaz Seems like each school has an arsenal of names Getting updated every year And if a kid breaks in a school And no one around chooses to hear Do they make a sound? Are they just the background noise Of a soundtrack stuck on repeat When people say things like Kids can be cruel? Every school was a big top circus tent And the pecking order went From acrobats to lion tamers From clowns to carnies All of these were miles ahead of who we were We were freaks Lobster claw boys and bearded ladies Oddities Juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle Trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal But at night While the others slept We kept