They toss a careless word like a grenade
And watch as it explodes,
Tearing me apart on the inside

They hurl insults like spears,
And they let taunts fly like a flight of arrows
Tearing through my tough skin in the hopes of drawing blood

In the face of the onslaught, I retreat
To my inner sanctuary,
The only refuge from the war of hate.

His Rotundity, Fat Face, Cow,
These are the names I know
And am labeled by

They are heaped upon me in a huge mass
Until the weight drags me down
And something snaps within.

I move with resolve to change my fate
To mold myself in to something better
But is it?

I see myself in the mirror
Fit, lean, the model of health
Well-liked and never the victim

But I in shaping myself
I have become a weapon
An example of success of those hateful words

I have become something else
Disdained my individuality
For superficial gratification

I thought I was proving them wrong
But, in truth, in rising to their challenges
I began something else, something foreign.

And so they won the war.