When your eyes lock on it’s reflection in the foggy bathroom mirror, do they long to reconstruct what they see? Do they wish you were of a smaller or bigger frame? Or perhaps of a more symmetrically beautiful design? Or maybe they long to make you into a completely different person altogether? My own eyes were the sharpest weapon I knew. There constant want for me to fit in, to look like the other girls, left scars under my skin. I wanted to get rid of my own race, or at least, the one that I portrayed.

***

Sunlight bathed my damp skin in warmth as I sat in the passenger seat of my father’s truck, my window down to let the warm air seep in. I loved staring out the window; watching the red dirt kick up into the air as we drove away from Mahaulepu beach and back onto the street. The tall buffalo grass blowing in the breeze blurred into a sea of green. In the distance you can see a darker hue of blue on the horizon that was the ocean. It made everything feel so secluded, not seeing anything but water off into the distance, it was calming. My salty hair clumped together into strands, some sticking onto my cheeks as the rest tangled in the back. My mother would have never let me swim with my waist long hair down, she would braid it to avoid tangles. I looked down at my tightly clenched fist, carefully opening it so that the tiny shells didn’t fall. I didn’t care if they were broken or dull, a shell was a shell and I loved them all.

The car jerked and my shells went flying into the air as my dad laid on the horn. Someone recklessly whipped out of the tourist shops parking lot and nearly hit us.

“F***ing haole!” He yelled.

My head shot up when he said that. I learned that term quite young: White person. It is used in a bad way trust me, you do not want to be labeled a haole. The closest meaning i can come up with is that it’s basically like being called a pig.

I never really understood why it was used so harshly until I was told in a school field trip to Oahu that “white people” or the Americans illegally took hawaiian land by forcing Queen Liliuokalani to sign over Hawaii to the US. Though most of that is true, it isn’t the case for everyone, especially not for a young girl whose father is a local boy and has been raised in hawaii her whole life. My mother however, is from missouri, she moved to hawaii when she was in middle school. She would be what we call a haole, and lucky for me I look just like her. Which I honestly wouldn’t mind if it hadn’t gotten me bullied in school.

“Dad, don’t say that. I’m a haole to.” I’d say more as a defense for mom than for me.

I didn’t want to be a haole. I wish I looked like my father and younger brother. School would be so much smoother and I would actually have friends. I wouldn’t have to sit alone at lunch and make flower bouquets out of weeds at recess. I wish I was considered one of them.
***
Middle school was different. I walked in by myself, but I didn’t stay that way. I made a friend in PE class, her name was Alma. I got to know her friend group and we were kind of close. However, there was a different pressure added to the mix. Boys.

Now I was never the crazy girl who always talked about boys, but I did have a couple crushes here and there, all of them were rather dark and an obvious local boys. But I never ended up with any of them.

My friend Alma and I walked  to choir like we usually did after homeroom. We opened the heavy door when her guy friend Brandon walked up and started a conversation with her. I knew it had something to do with girls, but I wasn’t paying much attention due to the fact that I am very socially awkward and could never really have a conversation. Alma caught my attention when she said;

“You should talk to Megan.”

I looked over and my stomach dropped to my feet. He glanced at me then refused to make eye contact as he slowly shook his head ‘no’ and eyed her as if she was crazy to say something like that. I felt completely rejected and hurt, but I mainly felt ugly and embarrassed. No wonder I never had a boyfriend, I wasn’t a “Local girl” and it would embarrass them to date me. I walked quickly into the choir room in an attempt to hide my shame.
Once I was in eighth grade I got a lot of cruel jokes directed at me. I was walking out of my homeroom class when Kal, a boy I went to elementary school with came up to me and said;

“Hey Megan, do you want to go out… side?” And he’d bust out in laughter as I would walk away trying to seem passive about it and went to my history class.

I was all alone again.

***

Though by now I have endured quite a bit of taunting and being made fun of, nothing scared me more that riding my bus.

I was currently living in Hanama’ulu which is the poorer side of town. My bus had kids who liked to make trouble, in fact the bus driver was so mad one day that he didn’t drop off any kids and took us back to school. All the while kids held signs out the window saying “help us” as if that would help the situation.

One day, close to the end of my eighth grade year, I was taunted a whole lot more than usual. I slid into the seat next to the window being sure to lift up my legs so that they wouldn’t stick to the hot leather. The humidity was terrible during the spring and summer months so wearing shorts meant you would stick to the seat and have red imprints of the cushion on the back of your thighs.and my friend Alma sat beside me. Once we pulled away from the school things started getting weird. I was talking with Alma when things started flying over my head. I decided not to pay much attention because I figured the bad kids were just acting up again. But more and more white objects started flying over me, some landing on me or in the aisle beside us. I finally looked around and realized what was happening.

They were throwing paper balls at me, accompanied by them yelling:

“White b****, go the f*** home!”and “We don’t want you f***ing haoles!” Alma picked up the paper balls and threw them back in my defense but they didn’t stop.

I looked back and noticed that these kids got off at my bus stop and I  had to walk two blocks to get to my house. I knew they were way bigger than me, especially this one girl who scared me enough already. She was really tall and built, she looked like a mix between hawaiian and filipino, but the one thing that i knew for sure was that she could fight, or “scrap” as we called it.

I was never in that position before and so once the bus stopped I ran. My backpack slamming against my back with each step and the taunting laughter in the background made my hair stand on end. I don’t think I even blinked, I was completely wide eyed when I crashed through the door.

“What is going on?” my mom asked worriedly and I broke down. I cried into her shoulder, my entire body was shaking and I will never forget how my blood felt like ice in my veins.

***

She called the principal that day but they didn’t do anything about it, just like when I was in elementary. They claimed stupid s*** such as “She’s too pretty to be bullied” or “The other girls are just jealous” which I knew for a fact wasn’t true and was incredibly shallow. And just like that my entire lifetime of torment and being picked on got swept  under the rug as if it meant nothing.

***

I meant nothing.

I was just another white girl looking for attention and who made other girls jealous for no other reason than the stereotype that I must have more money than they did. Funny thing was that I lived in government housing most of my life. I hated being in my own skin because it got me into trouble that I didn’t want. I was stereotyped based off of looks. I was bullied my entire childhood. It made me socially awkward and  easy to step on. It made me feel as though an emotionally abusive relationship was all the chance I was going to get. It made me wear dark dull colors to hide in the background. It made me dread each day that I had to face alone. It left me completely imperfect, a flaw that I could never hide or fix.

It made my eyes into the sharpest weapon I knew.