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Triumph For Us
OCTOBER
Oh, how beautiful October is.
It’s filled with snow and rain and apple cider fizz,
Red and brown and gold galore,
Skipping to your neighbors’ door.
I will treasure it like a handful of diamonds,
A crown is placed upon its crest.
October really is truly the best.
A wonderful month and season, it’s true,
Like a paradise a God precisely drew,
But then it all had to be ruined.
Poisoned by little immature boys, dead because of you.
REAL-I-ZA-TION (noun)
/ˌrē(ə)ləˈzāSH(ə)n/
An act of becoming fully aware of something as a fact.
As in when it first began, realization hadn’t set it.
As in when people told me about the boys later on, realization leisurely began to take hold, like a cobra slowly constricting its prey to feast.
As in when it was still continuing through the middle of October, realization hit hard, like Mjolnir being thrown by Thor, and I saw I needed to do something and I needed to do it now.
As in I wish realization had set in sooner.
EXPOSURE
Since you want to know more, I’ll tell you what happened, even though I’m a little cautious and shy about it.
In October, a pep rally between the higher grades began.
In October, there were two boys sitting near me as my gym class sat down to watch.
In October, one of them really wanted to sit next to me. Camrin.
In October, the other boy kept egging him on to do so. Tyler.
In October, Camrin touched me inappropriately.
In October, Camrin talked to me inappropriately.
In October, Camrin sexually harassed me.
In October, Tyler encouraged him to keep doing so.
In October, Camrin sexually harassed other girls, as he’s done in the past.
In October, Tyler encouraged him to keep doing so.
In October, once understanding how wrong and dreadful things really were, I made a plan with some friends.
In November, it was done.
In November, the principal knew.
In November, charges were pressed like an iron on an ironing board- scalding, burning, Praise the Lord that
In November, the two went on to ignore me.
In November, it was safe again, a breath of fresh air.
In November, we are free, free as a bird, free as a bee.
And if they think they can come back and smother,
Now and forever, we’ll stand up for each other.
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In October of 2021, two seventh-grade boys, of whom I hadn’t already known before the whole ordeal, started paying attention to me out of nowhere. Camrin, the main culprit, had a past of taking advantage of girls and getting into trouble. He tried to get me to fall for him, but I was warned about him by some of his victims, who are now friends of mine, and we made a plan together to stop him and his partner in crime, Tyler, who was making the problem worse by sometimes egging Camrin on to do the things he did. My poem explains this journey and the triumph and relief of giving creeps what they deserve.
“October” talks about the beginning of the problem. It’s an ode to how beautiful and wonderful everything was during October, and it’s figurative because it also stands for how nice everything was before Tyler and Camrin got involved in my life and messed stuff up. The whole thing started around the first few weeks of October and continued throughout the month.
“Realization” is about when I realized everything they were doing was wrong, about a week after things began. Something like this had never happened to me before at all, so it took a bit for understanding to sink in.
“Exposure” talks about when I decided to stop Camrin and Tyler once and for all with their two current victims. The plan was that the three of us would collect evidence of what Camrin and occasionally Tyler said and did to us and then we’d go to the Principal to put them in line. Soon enough, we got what we needed and a teacher helped us out. The school pressed charges against Camrin, and Lillian pressed charges against him too. I don’t know what happened to Tyler though.
From this event, I learned that I needed to take action sooner since Camrin and Tyler could have done worse during the planning period, but it was good that I took action when I did instead of not doing anything at all. Even though I wasn’t horribly traumatized or scarred by everything that had happened, it was just pretty uncomfortable, I also learned that I need to have a mindset that isn’t just “I don’t really know how to think about this but I know it’s wrong and I need to stop it”, because that’s kind of how it was at the start. I then made it a point to change my thinking process on the event from that to “It hasn’t hurt me horribly, but it’s still wrong. It could have and most likely did hurt other people worse than it did to me, so I need to help those who couldn’t help themselves and I need to get justice for those who were wronged.” This need to expose Camrin and Tyler to keep everyone who could be hurt by them safe helped me stick close to the plan instead of giving up because a certain piece of evidence wasn’t showing up that I needed. Needing to get justice for those who couldn’t get it for themselves was motivation to stay determined to put those immature creeps in their place.