They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It is colorful, bright, vibrant, sends a message, and tells a story. I could go on, but I have my own story to tell my own picture to present. And I will attempt to describe it with only one word: time.

When I was first entering Middle School I was a kid with hopes, and dreams like anyone else. Hopes for a brighter future, dreams for a better tomorrow. But I, like many, had had a troubled past.

As a child, was raised by my mother and father first in Tuscaloosa, a small town in Alabama, and then in Roswell, a town in New Mexico. It was a happy time, and one that I will never forget.

When we moved to Santa Fe, however, my father and mother drifted farther apart. Within months, they were divorced. I was left, not alone, as I would have liked to be, but stretched between two sides trying to make peace, trying to bring the old days back.

If the great leaders of our world cannot make peace between nations, how could a small boy hope to accomplish such a feat? Soon my father became little more than a memory, someone I could talk to and visit, like a cousin, but was barred from becoming close to.

All of that hurt and unresolved anger boiled within me for time unmeasurable, though it had been ten long years, to me, it was an eternity of inner struggle. But I held on, and struggled, and braved it, for my parents, for the good old days.

And one day, in seventh grade, my class was going out to Phys. Ed., and during a game of tag, one of my classmates grabbed me, and I heard my shirt, a silk printed shirt and a gift from my family in Thailand, rip.

I didn't know why the classmate had done it, but it wasn't my concern. It was mine, it was my family's, it was a scrap, a shred, a memory of the days I clung to so desperately. Anger welled within me, and I began to shout, and to rant.

And with one final resolve, I assaulted him. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't his doing: it was mine. I was fed-up with years of pain, and took it out on someone who didn't deserve it. I was out of time, my past had caught-up with me.

A year later, I come to terms with him and myself, and I look forward to the future, and not to the past. That classmate is now one of my friends, and we enjoy our last year of Middle School together.

I feel that in order for bullying to stop, we can't settle with aiding the victims, but helping the bullies overcome their problems, so that, like me, they can turn around and spread comfort and love for others, and in time, achieve their dreams for a better future.