I was going through my pictures as a teenager, about 5 or 6 years ago, one of the pictures stopped me, it spoke to me, it asked to remember the good days that I had with some of my friends, or enemies I can say, I remembered not even one good memory of them, but the bad ones, where they bullied me, mocked me and made fun of me and dissed me. I skipped through all the pictures trying to remember at least one good memory with these people, I decided to go back in time and remember how it started.
I was 11 years when we moved to a new country, still learning to walk, yes learning to walk at the age of 11 – a long story I don’t need to explain – the first people I met were the guys in my neighborhood, I have to admit I was new to those people, a new kid in the neighborhood and with a disability – a Martian. Days flew by and I never had the guts to talk to them – I had enough school-friends – but one day I decided to make new friends, so I told my sister to come with me as for she was already friends with their sisters, and so my sister spoke to the little kids to be friends with, The Martian, me. It was easier than I thought, we became friends, good friends for a while. As we grew older to being teenagers, they started to hate me, discriminate me, although protect me from anyone who bullied me from outside their community. I remember one day two guys, in my neighborhood too, bullied me, hit me and made fun of everything God hasn’t gave me – my ability to walk properly and pronounce some letters – yes, I started shouting, screaming and crying trying to defend myself, and so my friends came in, shouted furiously at them and hit them to the ground and took me away. I thought all the hatred was created by me, I thought it was false, I thought I was exaggerating, but what I thought wasn’t real. Days went by and I found out that they really hate me, hated me for being a Martian, I couldn’t go to these hood fights, or play the “ding n’ ditch” or even play soccer, I was useless to them, all I did was talk, that’s not what they want from a friend so they started to dis me, bully me, and put me to the ground.
Tears falling off my face as I’m writing these thoughts, trying to remember more of what happened, Eminem’s music in my ears playing loud helping me remember that he was the one to give me enough guts and strength to face those people and be thankful to them because I used my enemies’ words as strength. Now I know that if all this hadn’t happened I would never be able to connect words like crosswords, and be strong enough to face everything in my life and this was the rise of Def.
Snap back to the hood and what happened, one day I was fed up from all what happened, locked myself in my room with music in my ear and started to think of what shall I do to end all this, it’s either I fight back, stay at home so I won’t face them, or – yes, commit suicide – but something made me feel stronger, a voice in my head telling me that the last two choices are what they want, they wanted to destroy me and the voice wanted to rebuild me, he was telling me that I should stand up on my feet and feed them what they fed and prove to myself, first, and them that I am strong enough to not give up, “name is Def btw, from defensive” he said as he gave me his hand and gave me a tap on my back and whispered “from this day on, I will be here for you”.
The next day came, I was excited to go down and see them and get bullied – yes get bullied and show them the lion in me – and so the night came and I stood with them and chatted till they started to mock me again, I got all excited and anxious, but here was the surprise – not only they were surprised, I was surprised too. Every word they said ricocheted off of me and glued to them, yes all of them, they held and an AK-47 but I held an M16, and a rocket launcher ready for the final blow, they kept telling me things I hated to hear but I amused them with the rocket launcher, boom! I fired it and faded to the blackness. Became a successful motivational speaker, writer and an activist, with a huge social circle. Surprised, not only to see they now clap for me, but they’re in the front row.
People grow up I witnessed, change to better, they are not now what they were. Before ending this with a full stop, go to the people who dissed you, hated you and bullied you, because without them, you could never have become strong.
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