Don't let them win!

  When I was in school and was bullied and outcasted, it was so bad through the last half of my Sophomore year my mother and I were talking about dropping out of school and going to work until my early twenties, then I can go back to adult education and get my GED.

   I was gonna turn sixteen during the summer so it was the legal age for me to drop out of school.

   During the last weeks of my sophomore year, this strong feeling came over me, the feeling of not wanting to quit, to keep going. And these thoughts were going over and over in my head. Something telling me "You've come a long way and you're almost there, you're almost at the finish line."

     Through the first month of summer break I was doing a lot of thinking. I was thinking about how the kids and teachers were saying I would quit, how they would  want me to quit and they would win if I quit and I was thinking about them gloating at the fact that I quit! I felt this spark lit in me! I can't quit! I won't quit!

     On the the morning of my sixteenth birthday, my mother woke me up with "Happy birthday, my son! You can quit school!" And I gave my mother a big surprise with "I don't mean you any disrespect. But fuck no, I'm not dropping out! That's just what those assholes want! I'm gonna keep going to school and graduate!" 

     When bullies bring you down, beat you down, that's their main task! When they attack you physically or verbally, they want to bring you down to build themselves up because that's the only way they can! 

     I've noticed bullies in my school get really low grades and they try to make drag us down with them! And we cannot let them! I didn't let them!