The Sound of Silence

It seemed like everything changed in a flash as I began my last year as a kid, or so I believed. My thirteenth year would be next, and I already knew everything about life, and what's wrong and right. I begged my mom to switch me to our current district's public school. I pleaded and cried that the private school I attended was too small and cramped for me, somewhere in my mind I believed this lie, another year at the private school and I might just die. No results? Plan B is now fully in effect, and I've began acting out in class, in utter disrespect, anyone could see trouble would come next, which was sadly correct, such a foolish decision in retrospect. I never got in trouble, now I'm suspended at home doing chores for my bad behavior, but my next lesson would be far greater, and I thought switching to public schools was doing myself a favor, and I would realize the truth much later. So I switched to the public school in our district and was happy to be going there. The bus pulled up and we took a 20 min drive in the country, a landscape dotted by tractors and farms, my mind should have been sounding off alarms, but I was strangely charmed.

I knew a few faces but had only a couple of true friends here, so everything was brand new to me. Eventually I began to pick up on the stares and jokes about my ethnicity and how Blacks were good at sports, but suffered intellectual creativity. The silent stares said the most, no need for words to be spoke, hate is quite visible without the words to verify it in some situations, I felt like an outsider here, all alone, but there's nowhere else to go, especially at this time in the school year, my worst fears. It was hard to focus in class, when getting jumped was a real possibility for me. I tried to avoid it and mind my own business in class, but one day came the inevitable clash. I got a few blows in before being grabbed and held down, there were my opponent's friends all around, what was I to do now?

My opponent seized the chance to hit me while my arms were being held, my head rocked into the lockers, and my glasses broke too, finally my friend managed to get into their circle and get me free, I can feel my nose began to bleed, and some of my hips are broken too, yes indeed. The next few weeks were a blur of torment and frustration, plus jokes and teasing but nothing effects me like the silence of my classmates when asked by the teachers what happened, their faces were serious now, no laughing. Then I realized the loudest sound was the sound of their silence, and how they laughed at the violence, and there were only 5 or 6 blacks in a school of 300 or so, and it would soon be my time to go. Perhaps I should have known better, but I was only 12 years old, after that school experience I knew all to well that the world can be cold, and actuality is seldom like it was told. I went to a more culturally diverse school the following year, and the rest of my junior high and high school memories aren't as tainted by hate and racism, but the feeling of being alone is horrible and sad to teens especially but I learned a lesson about the sound silence, and determined to never be hateful like the boys at my junior high school were to me, it destroys happiness and positivity too, and I am glad it didn't consume me, rather taught a stern lesson in life. Everyone won't like you, and that's okay.