War for your Dreams

Teenagers can be cruel. Kids have been bullied and mocked to the point they commit suicide. Do you see why I’m telling you we must see this as a WAR? Words have destroyed people. For some reason, my dark skin was offensive to my mother. Her cruelty was never ending. One day she said,”Have you really looked at your bottom lip?” My bottom lip was a little pink; discolored from birth – like I had been smoking. I thought, “What’s wrong with my bottom lip?” She said, “It looks like a monkey’s butt!” I went and looked in the mirror. I just stared for a minute. Then I went to the encyclopedia to see if I could find the picture of a monkey’s butt. Couldn’t find one. Back to the mirror I went. Something changed this time. I wondered how many people looked at me and saw a monkey. Then, I looked at my dark skin and short hair. UGLY! I was ugly. Every time I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see my unblemished skin, my slanted eyes, or my nice shape. I just saw ugly. An ugly dark skinned girl, living in a house with better looking people. I didn’t want to look much in the mirror anymore. My looks no longer mattered. I was ugly, and I accepted it.