Hello,

My name is James and I am now a freshman in college. My story begins back all the way to fourth grade which is where my first encounter with bullying began. It started with a death threat written on the wall of the school.

I had transferred schools (family moving) to a small town school district where my graduation class was a mere 32 kids. 

I was never the most popular kid at all. In middle school there were times where I would be afraid to do simple things such as hanging out or being around certain people because of my worry of being hurt and bullied. It would happen day in and day out. I would skip school on purpose to not deal with it and there were times where I would think about how I would kill myself and more...My self-written spoken word poem I think will catch everything....

Middle School
Almost there. Almost high school, but wait - was it really that close?

When you're the child that is called gay everyday, when you're the child who is too scared to go shower right away after gym because of the fear of abuse... Is high school really that close?

Is high school really that close when in grade seven, riding the bus to and from school wasn't just a way of transportation, but a daily worry that you're like a tank in Iraq, worrying that you're going to go over a roadside bomb? Worrying that the peace will soon break and you'll be afflicted with abuse. Knowing that no matter where you sat, they still called you names and threw stuff at you. 

Is high school even close when you have to worry about making the struggle to just go to middle school? When the lie of "I'm sick" becomes synonymous with "I want it all to end?"

Is high school even on the horizon when each day you come home, you're thinking about different ways to kill yourself? 
"Do I overdose on the pills that are meant to heal?"
"Do I grab a knife and gut myself the same way someone does their trophy buck?"

High school, nor anything, is on your mind when you're sitting there at night - bottle of painkillers in the left hand and a bottle of alcohol in the right. Praying that after it's all over you just fall asleep and never wake up. Letting everyone think that is was just your time --- WAIT

It wasn't.
It wasn't my time.
It wasn't my time to give up.
It wasn't my time to let my parents be without their child.
No
However, it was a different time.
It was my time to grow stronger, 
it was my time to be able to help others.
It's now MY time to be here today, to prove that they were wrong!

...To prove,
that it does...get better.

"Middle School"
Spoken Word
James Sheets