I was the frightened little kid
Who got pushed against the wall.
I wasn’t terribly masculine
Had acne and was not very tall.
Or maybe it was my intelligence
Or artistic talent that drew the ire.
It was an ever-changing list
That drew my fellow student’s fire.

Maybe it was that my game
Was never quite there for sports.
Or maybe when I did not join
On jokes about **** and other sorts
Of woman demeaning quips
They had to have learned at home.
Parental misguidance one oh one
Not learned at school on the roam.

Whatever it was, I got beaten
And locked inside my own locker.
And I got called ***** and ***.
Now isn’t that a big fat shocker?
I got shoved around in hallways
And knocked out cold by a creep.
I didn’t even know the ****
But he decided to put me to sleep.

And when the faculty was called
I was suspended along with the guy.
The school’s policy it seemed
Was to punish both kids. Ask why.
I asked and I was told sternly
That the school really did not care
The attacker and the attacked
Had the same punishment to share.

Now, in this case, the attacker was
Known to be a ruffian and a miscreant.
And I was known to be a wimp.
So why give me unusual punishment
When I was already being punished
For not being some kind of snorting ****?
This was like the school system
Giving my jaw an extra and official sock!

It would be nice to say about this
That it was a totally isolated incident,
And that principals seldom pass out
This officially thoughtless kind of punishment.
But I heard that line so many times
I could have lip-synched right along with him
As the principal mouthed a policy line
From a time grown distant and dangerously dim.

School gym coaches called us girls
If we didn’t keep up with hand-picked brutes
Who enjoyed inherited musculature
And bigot approved physical attributes.
So those of us who were who we were
And could not manage mow down the men
At the line of scrimmages
Were called ‘lils’ and fairies once again.