Varsity new POV

All I ever wanted was to be normal. Not in the sense that I lived in a cookie cutter world and was like everyone else. I just wanted to feel normal. I wanted to fit in with all the other kids. I didn’t want to always feel left out and alone. I knew I had to try something to fit in with the other kids, so I decided to try out basketball. That seemed like the worst mistake I could’ve made. Instead of fitting in, I was still an outsider — even more than I was before. I would be minding my business and everyone would come up to me and tell me to shoot the ball, to dunk, to do whatever they thought would make the rest of their friends laugh. They didn’t even know my name. I’d just be called “Varsity” all because I thought that if I told them that I was good at basketball, maybe I’d stop being looked down upon. The worst parts of PE weren’t even during the class. It was before and after — where they wouldn’t get caught. I thought the low-pressure, rusty showers where perhaps the only time during PE where I could find placidity. Once again, I was wrong. Even while I was showering, they found a way to mess with me. I would come out of the shower dripping wet, with only my towel on me, looking everywhere for my school uniform. All I ever wanted was to feel like I belonged. I didn’t think I was asking for much. I still couldn’t find my clothes anywhere and I just gave up. They all laughed and ridiculed as I was stuck in my towel, cold, at the brink of tears. But I was not going to cave into my emotions. I had to be strong. I had to retain the potential ounce of respect that they still had left for me. I could’ve let in to my emotions. I could have just cried and yelled and asked why they felt the need to bully me so much, but I knew that they would never do the same. I had to fit in — so I held it together. There was one day where I finally thought that things had turned around. I thought that the boys had finally decided to stop bullying me and hopefully even befriend me. While everything seemed to be going good, I got socked in the temple. I had finally had enough, and while I was getting ready to fight back, my genetically underprivileged body got beat bloody. I sat at the back corner of the showers, supporting my fragile frame with the sturdy walls, still ready to fight. While I was ready to go to my next class, they kicked my clothes into a wet soppy puddle in the shower room, and left me there alone. That day when I went to home, the physical wounds were much more difficult to hide than my emotional ones. I thought if I had quickly said hi to mom and went upstairs that she wouldn’t notice, but that wasn’t the case. My lies seemed to be fruitless. I told her I fell. She yelled at me, asking how I could have a black eye from falling, asking me why I didn’t brace the fall. I tried to hold it together but I couldn’t anymore. I let all of it out. I told her everything, how they would always ridicule me, how they would hide my clothes after I showered, how the watched me get beat up and did nothing to stop it. Against my wishes, my mom withheld me from going to school the next morning, eliminating any chances of me ever being able to feel normal again.

I chose to modify this work because I felt like it was inspirational to write from the point of view of “Varsity.” Someone who was relentlessly bullied and harassed, but managed to hold it together for an incredibly long time. I modified the piece “Varsity” by Brock Kingsley and modified it to be from the point of view of “Varsity” but in chronological order of the story told from the point of view of the bullies. Some challenges I faced when writing from the other point of view was trying to convey the precise emotions that “Varsity” was feeling, and also contrasting his sadness and pain with his tenacity and spirit that kept him going. I managed these challenges by attempting to display this contrast in my writing, and showed how despite the trouble, he still managed to keep on. I’ve learned that POV and voice are really powerful in writing, and that one story can be told in hundreds of way with these tools. I even think this story could be told in a great way from the POV of a student who wanted to stand up for Varsity but never got the guts to do so, and was simply a bystander.