In middle school, kids are awful.

They  take even the smallest things that make you

“different”

and use it to bring you down.

I am a biracial man,

half South Korean

half western European.

The most noticeable feature about my ethnicity,

One of the things that makes me feel unique and beautiful,

My eyes,

Became the thing,

I couldn’t stand to look at in the mirror.

In seventh grade kids used my race to bring me down.

They came up to me

and asked me questions like,

“Is it true that you’re related to Kim Jong Un?”

Or “Do you really eat dogs?”

Or when they said “You’re Korean right?

And I would reply ‘Yeah, I’m half south Korean’

and they would say “you know that means you have a small dick right?

Because all Koreans have small dicks.”

Just to make their friends laugh.

There was this one time,

Freshmen year of high school.

I came into the locker room,

About to change for baseball,

Then a few kids came to me and said

“Hey, Peter we found your cup.”

They all laugh,

pulling out a tiny sports cup

Meant for children.

Then the whole locker room

erupts into laughter.

They couldn’t comprehend the pain

that these horrible, nasty, and cruel comments caused me.

Never realized that what they said

made me embarrassed and ashamed

of the thing that makes me beautiful,

my race.

When I yelled at them

“LEAVE ME ALONE” or

“SHUT UP!”

They would respond

“Calm down, its just a joke.

Don’t be so sensitive.”

But, they never could understand that a joke about race

feels like being punched in the gut.

They couldn’t comprehend

that these daily racist and hurtful jokes

makes you feel like you feel

like you’re facing Mike Tyson in a boxing match

with your hands tied behind your back and

duct tape over your mouth.

And when I yelled at them

to “FUCK OFF!” And started to cry,

they would say

“what a baby”

“take a joke it’s not a big deal.”

They couldn’t comprehend

that them shutting me down

when I got upset,

felt like them dunking my head underwater

so that I couldn’t breathe.

So to all the people

who think they’re just joking

when talking shit about someones race,

they need to fucking remember

that a joke about race

is never really a joke.