“Just get off the bus!” “We want to go home!” That’s what they all said, or quite frankly shouted at me. I spun around in a swift movement, holding back the salty droplets of water in my eyes. I whispered a thank you to the bus driver as I did every day, and stepped off of the bus. With my arms tight across my chest I took long, quick steps, desperate to be in the safety of my own home.

I forced the key into the lock and twisted the key. I slammed the door shut and ran up the stairs, my chest convulsing. Threw myself onto the bed, face down, and let the tears come, screaming to myself, “Why do they do it? What did I do to them? Do they think that it’s funny? Why can’t they just leave me alone?” All the while, I knew that it was silly to cry, I knew that others have undergone worse things. So why was I crying after simply being tripped several times?

I soon realized why. I was me, I had never been bullied, and this was enough to make me crack. Some people who have been bullied more severely may become angry when others cry for things as small as being tripped. But I am not them, we are not them.

Being bullied is not acceptable. Some “attacks” are on purely innocent young people. So why do bullies do it? Do they acquire dome great sense of superiority, or do they just find it amusing to see us squirm? What confuses me is that sometime the bullies don’t even take the credit for the bullying, when they are obviously the ones doing it? They laugh, they smile, they say, “I’m not doing anything.” But they know, they know that we know, they know that others know, so why?

More and more innocent young people are being chosen to be “attacked.” In our middle school this year, we have had a student humiliated, called names, and threatened with a pocket knife. Why? Because he is different. He no longer feels safe moving from class to class. He has had to switch schools, but the same things happened there.

We need to stop bullying. We need to confront the bullies. They cannot be tolerated any longer. If you see a fellow student/peer being pushed, humiliated or just being called names, step up. If you think that it is fun to watch, put yourself in their shoes and get a different perspective in life. It could happen to you.