the punch i never threw

“a message to my childhood bullies”

they spat my name like bitter pills,
twisting it till even echoes winced.
i wore their laughter like loose threads,
unravelling in every hallway inch.

a “loser” scrawled on my locker door,
a bruise of ink that never dried.
they’d bump and bark and call it play-
while i just clenched the storm inside.

my fists were fires, fingers folded,
forged in flame but cooled by will.
i bit back every broken syllable,
a soldier still-though soft and still.

i learned to hide in bathroom stalls,
as if shame could flush the sin of being.
they mocked my lunch, my lisp, my shoes-
even my silence felt worth seeing.

but i didn’t swing. i didn’t break.
my knuckles never wrote revenge.
i let their rage just ricochet-
like rain off a rooftop’s iron edge.

each slap they smuggled past the rules
taught me more than school ever could:
that mercy isn’t made of marble,
but soft clay that grips where steel never would.

i trained my tongue to sculpt, not slash-
words became my quiet blade.
they took my power, punch by punch,
but i rebuilt what they unmade.

i see them now-gray ghosts in suits,
clocking in with hollow pride.
still bullying, but now in boardrooms,
their schoolyard venom formalized.

and me? i own the silence now-
that sacred stillness i once feared.
it made a home within my chest,
where once their laughter pierced and sneered.

i hold no hate, no boiling brew,
no scar that begs to be renewed.
for i am not what they put me through-
i am the punch i never threw.