I Am More Beautiful Than My Bullies

They beat me to the ground because I didn't look like them,

They destroyed my home because I didn't want to be them,

They stole my childhood because I didn't learn or behave like them,

They stole my life because I was sensitive,

They kicked me to the ground;

They didn't like me because I was soft,

As if that wasn't enough.

They bullied me into adulthood and destroyed my parenting years,

They forced my children and theirs to witness the brutality that they

should never have seen,

They stole our security, leaving us homeless several times,

They took my childhood, my children's childhood, and my adulthood away.

It didn't stop there.

They violated my body in many vulgar ways,

They taught me not to like myself,

Told me I couldn't be loved,

And made me feel that my life wasn't worth living;

For many years, they tormented me,

And for many years, I felt the pain, torment, and guilt of

their wrong actions,

But I got up.

I spent years questioning myself;

"Who am I?"

"Am I worth anything?"

"Can I be loved?"

"Am I enough?"

One day;

I woke up; I opened up my eyes,

And I realized my life is too precious to throw away,

Too precious to give up,

Too precious to hate me as much as those bullies hated themselves,

but I empathize;

They must have hated themselves so much, to have bullied me and treated me in such horrific and degrading ways,

My only hope is that, one day they find their way before it is too late.

One thing is for sure.

I will never hate myself as much as those bullies hated me,

For I am more beautiful than my bullies;

I am beautiful because I will always be me,

And that is something they can't take away.