Branded

The names they give you are permanent— there is no way to shake them off. Once you enter middle school, you are an innocent little cow munching on some grass when they sneak up behind you with a red-hot iron bar and ram it on your side.

You're immediately branded.

The way you dress, the way you talk, the way you act— it's all taken into account. They have a mental vault where they store this information. No matter who you are, they will brand you.

There is ways to evolve, such as trying on new clothes and talking to new people. But they will never forget who you were the first day of one of the scariest years of your life.

They aren't brave enough to say your name to your face. Gay, dumb, idiot, four-eyes, deformed, midget, whatever they come up with. It follows you like a shadow until the day you die; haunting, whispering in your ear, "This is who you are. You can not deny it."

In a way, they are right. But that doesn't change how wrong they are.

Hate, anger, selfishness, it's the natural instinct of the human nature. Why understand when you can fight and destroy? After all, you are made to only take care of yourself...aren't you?

They choose to tease. It is their choice to do what they want. They think they're just making jokes with their "friends", but there is no such thing as okay bullying.

The sweet cows in the pasture, minding their own business are branded. They can never shake off who they belong to and what they are.

Unlike cows, we have new chances. We can move to new places and meet new people, all while knowing that they don't know who we are. We should feel lucky for that.

But not everyone gets a second chance at finding new friends. And that makes us the trapped cows in the pasture.

Forever branded by the people who "rule the school".

That is what our lives have become today.

Will it ever change?

We may never know.