Bully

It all started back in high school. “move you faggot!” At first I thought Brandon was talking to me, but when I looked at him I saw that he was talking to Michael. Michael was your average looking Mexican boy. He was about five foot eight, dark brown hair, and brown eyes. He also acted normal. The only strange thing that you would see about him is that he would never have friends. He would always be eating by himself at the cafeteria during lunch. But you wouldn’t think he was normal once you found out that he was gay.

Once people found out that he was gay they wouldn’t feel bad for him. As a matter of fact more people would start picking on him. I was probably one of the only guys that didn’t pick on him. Not that I was gay or anything but I just don’t think it’s right to make fun of people because of their sexuality. I would just stay quiet and not say anything when my friends or other people would start picking on Michael. Michael would cut his wrist and tell everyone that he does that because of them, of course that made everyone start telling him more names. I recall that people would start calling him a “Drama Queen” , “Diva”, “Whore”, and “Maricon”. Maricon is Spanish for faggot.

My name is Tomas. I had no idea what bystander meant. I’ve never heard about it at that time. I had no idea that bystanding could still hurt the victim of bullying. I remember this one time when I was walking home from school, Michael was about forty feet in front of me. I wasn’t really paying attention to him, I was too busy texting this cute girl. When all of a sudden a car full of the high school jocks came out from the corner and drove fast so that they could catch up to Michael. They caught up to him and started to beat him up. I just standed there not knowing what to do. Michael was screaming for help, he saw me but I didn’t want to be involved or get called a snitch if I called the cops to help him. So I just turned around and started walking away. The next day I saw Michael at school. He had a black eye and was hunching every step that he would take.

Time went by and Michael would still get picked on. Our senior year of high school I had Physical Education class with him. There was a lot of homophobes in that class. They would pick on him all the time and when we had to partner up he was always alone because no one wanted to be with him. He told some girl that he thought some guy in our class was cute. The girl then told the guy and the guy started to beat Michael up. Michael was begging everyone for help but no one would help me. I was recording so that I could put it on Worldstarhiphop.com . I saw the look on Michaels eyes and I could see that he was getting hurt. That was the last day I ever saw Michael alive. It turns out that when Michael got home he committed suicide. He committed suicide by filling up his bathtub and throwing the blow-dryer while it was on and he was inside the bathtub. His little sister found him a couple of hours later.

When I found out about Michaels death I started crying. I started crying because I felt as if it was all my fault. I started to get those what if questions. What if I had stood up for him. I felt bad because what if he committed suicide because I didn’t help him. To everyone who witnesses people who get bullied, please stand up for them because you might save a life and they are going to thank you for standing up for them. You will feel regret if you don’t stand up for them.