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Attempt #2 at Spoken Word/ Slam Poetry style work, dealing with the same theme as these memories are still on hand.

Poland
I became truly conscious of myself only minutes after my first beating. Aware of all those who looked at me as different or weird because I managed to assess those who didn’t interfere, see, unlike many boys my first beating was not in the home, not from a parent or guardian but from another child, Stuart, another kid who was angry at the world because he didn’t know how to deal with the fact that his personal life was s**t so when he hit me it was like work, he always got right down to business. 3:15 pm every day walking home from class in the fourth grade always told I had to walk one way because adults don’t drive down the other roads and I think about how safe was I really when the adults never stopped, never tried to pull one kid off of another, I still wonder what could make a kid so mad to attack every day just to strike the first hint of fear in a boy five years younger than himself.
I sometimes wonder if at that time, someone was hitting him or something, maybe someone didn’t love him enough or he wasn’t getting attention so he lost that connection with positive and negative, lost touch with the morals instilled in us through the magic of Disney; the magic of ‘never be mean to anyone else but have a lot of racist undertones.’ Maybe we all lose that connection with right and wrong eventually, because the fears I have now from the times back then make me question why nobody stopped. Nobody did anything. This was a regular thing, everyday, knuckles wrapped in a thin layer of meat would chip away at the barrier I learned to put up between myself and the world and the world that I’m supposed to love just turned a blind eye to the group of thirteen year olds practicing their penalty kicks on a nine year old.
When I left that school things didn’t really change apart from all the faces and names, the only time I ever saw change was in myself, while I once prayed to anything in the world for stop the hatred, stop the violence, stop the fear that I had every day I now had an erratic temper which flared up when it felt someone was too close. Sparks sizzling in my heart because somebody actually has the nerve to say they care, sure it took years to re-build this barrier but now it’s the great wall of me, separating who I am and what I feel and how I act into separate provinces, provinces that only interact when it is dark and all the guards have gone to sleep because even they knew that other nations are just waiting for them to let their guard down, these new found friends having the courage to rebuild in the face of catastrophe, but the only structure they know how to build is a wall, so more barriers go up for every small loss that this nation experiences until there are no more homes, until an entire city is eclipsed by walls, where the sunlight can never touch down on a young boy who just needs a sign for him to hope.
It was at this time that the real boy realized that the fake walls were not helping, assessed the risks in acknowledging his fears, see, he had never really contemplated love and it was that stunning realization that, maybe this is worth it. And you know? After years and years of hating the world, hating himself, treating others as he’d been treated only to find that it didn’t make him feel better. This is his apology to all those he pushed away, his “I’m so sorry” to those he treated poorly due to seeing all the things he hated about himself in others. This is this boys message, clear as can be: One day I will see you again Stuart, and for the longest time I’ve dreamt of beating you until my heels crack and the skin peels away from my knuckles, until I extract every ounce of pleasure there is to be had in revenge, with the palpable taste of rage coming up from my stomach to my mouth, I wanted to feel Catharsis... but not anymore. One day I’ll meet you and look you dead in the eye and see if you’re proud of yourself, proud of the hospital visits my mother had to make, proud of the bruises and cuts and broken ribs that I had to go home and explain. I will look you in the eye and tell you that I’m better than you, and though it took years to realize this after rebuilding a fully functioning nation named Poland, I am a proud city, who no longer has to fear that looming shadow of big mean Germany because, let’s face it, the whole world is keeping an eye on you now... and the world can finally see little Poland, waiting for your apology.