I looked around the bus; every seat was filled with teenagers. They were laughing, listening to music, talking to each other. I did not want to sit where someone already was, and the line behind me was getting impatient. I kept walking until I came upon an empty seat. It was towards the back, sighing I sat down and pulled out my headphones. Suddenly noticing a shadow hovering over me I looked up.

It was a boy, asking if he could sit next to me, not caring much I nodded and moved over. He started talking to me, more to embarrass me than friendliness. I was the new kid in the neighborhood, and I felt like an outsider.

They all had their inside jokes, but I couldn’t care less; I was just here to get home. They all began asking me questions, until the dreaded one came. I knew someone would ask it eventually, and I had not decided how I was going avoid it this time. Where are you from? I have been asked that question more times than I can count, but answering it was something I always hated.

This time I decided there was no point in avoiding it like I usually would. There were too many eyes on me, all wondering and inquisitive. I did not really know where I was from. I had been born here, but I knew if I said that everyone would expect a clarification. Pakistan.

 That one word caused so many different reactions in people. Everyone said something different some offering polite smiles or a “That’s cool” but the one that stood out the most was the one I had been expecting. Terrorist.

I should have been immune to it by now, but I was not. It still stung. It was over in a moment, everyone moving on to different topics, not even leaving me a chance to reply.

After moments like this became too much, the wide eyes stare back at me, unblinking, analyzing. They look down from head to toe, finding imperfections, tiny flaws, things others searching for tiny flaws others would never notice. I begin to glare at the mirror, wishing it would disappear, wishing I was not me.

Once people tore away the top layers, the rest unraveled. The smallest things made an impact that the people who said them probably did not intend, probably could not imagine. I still remember to this day things were said to me in elementary school.

It makes me wonder how such little children could be so cruel. It was the tiniest things, the small jokes about my ethnicity, and the little prods about my religion. Things I could not change, things that defined who I was.

America is the only home I know, and when people started saying otherwise I started feeling like a refugee, a displaced person. If this was not my home –the place I have lived my whole life– then where was?

It grew to a point where I hated everything about me, which I would later realize, defined me. I could not stand people looking at me; I began to assume they were criticizing me, even with the smallest glance. I was afraid to speak up in class, and I shut myself off. I stopped trying to make friends; I automatically assumed people would not want to talk to me.

Not everyone’s intentions were to hurt me. I remember being in the locker room, all of us standing in front of the mirror after tennis and feeling horrible about myself because someone made a joke about a flaw I had. Something so insignificant I had never noticed it, it does not even come to mind now, yet I can still remember how I felt.

As if everyone was looking down upon me, noticing all these things that I did not. If they had found one, there were probably a hundred others that they noticed, right? I know they never realized the impact of these little things. I remember smiling back and staring at them, maybe even laughing, because it was supposed to be a joke, but it still hurt.

The little jokes with the “no offense” at the end did not make it better; it made it worse. It was like they knew it was out of place, yet still could not keep themselves from saying it. Those words made me start comparing myself to everyone I saw.

As humans, we need to become wiser with our words. It is not like I have not said things in the spur of the moment that I regret. I realize their impact now. They say words cannot hurt you, and that is not true.

Words can cut deeper than the sharpest sword. Physical pain inevitably heals, but words can be something that haunts you for the rest of your life.

I know there are people who have had it much worse, they have gone through so much, yet they still smile every day, and act kindly towards everyone around them. People around us, people in the hallway, but there’s so much a smile can hide.

Bullying is not always physical, in fact most of the times it is not, it is verbal. It happens in our hallways, classrooms, bathrooms every day.  It might not be apparent, but it is there.

It startles me that recently teen suicides due to bullying have become common in the news. I know we all realize that it should not be that way, but not many of us are getting the message – that the change starts with us.

Once we start thinking about the consequences of our actions beforehand, treating others with kindness, leading by example, then can we truly change. It sounds so cliché, like a quote that would hang on a laminated poster on a classroom wall, but that does not make it any less true.  Everyone has had things said to them that they would have rather not heard, and the words “treat others the way you wanted to be treated” have never rang truer.