Poetry of the Bull

The nickname came after one perfect swing.

Before that day, I was just Marcus—that quiet freshman who sat in the back of English class, the one everyone forgot existed. But when I accidentally crushed a baseball over the fence during gym, suddenly I was "Bull." Like a bull that charges.

"Bro, you didn't just hit that ball," Tyler said, smacking my shoulder way too hard. "You assaulted it. You're a straight-up beast, Bull."

The name stuck. Suddenly, people actually knew who I was. Girls said hi in the hallway. Guys wanted me on their teams. But the whole thing felt like living inside someone else's life. I mean, I hated baseball. I hated sports. My hidden poetry journal under my bed had more thoughts about feelings than about athletic achievement.

The weird part? I caught myself watching her like I was some kind of spy. Sophie Chen sat two rows ahead of me in English, always doodling in the margins of her notebook, dark hair falling over her face like a curtain she couldn't decide to open or close. I'd memorized her schedule, which sounds creepier than it actually was—I just noticed patterns.

Then everything came crashing down.

It happened after third period. I was at my locker, grabbing my history textbook, when I realized my journal was gone. Panic clawed up my throat. I'd written actual emotions in there. Actual thoughts that weren't approved by the social hierarchy of high school.

"Looking for this?"

I spun around. Sophie stood there, holding my journal like it was evidence in a criminal investigation.

"Give it back." My face burned. I was dead. This was it. The end of my social existence.

"You're really good," she said, flipping through the pages like she wasn't holding my entire soul in her hands. "Like, actually good. Not fake deep like Tyler's Instagram captions."

"You read it?"

"I'm the one who found it when it fell out of your bag yesterday." She shrugged. "I was gonna return it, but then I started reading... and I got caught up in it." She smiled, and it was this genuine, crooked thing that made something in my chest crack open. "You're not what everyone thinks you are, are you?"

"What does everyone think?"

"That you're just Bull." She closed the journal and handed it back. "But you're actually someone who writes poems about how lonely it feels to be seen but not known."

I stared at her. "That's... actually exactly what I write about."

"I know." She shouldered her bag. "That's why I read the whole thing."

The bell rang. She started walking away, then turned back.

"Hey, Bull?"

"Yeah?"

"Write something about baseball. Make it metaphorical. I bet you'd crush it."

She winked. Like a total dork. Like someone who definitely knew she'd just witnessed something private and decided to keep it safe.

I stood there in the hallway, journal against my chest, as everyone rushed past me to fourth period. And for the first time since that perfect swing, I didn't feel like I was pretending.

The nickname was still weird. The baseball thing was still a lie. But someone knew the truth—and she didn't run away from it.

Maybe that's what growing up feels like. Not becoming who everyone thinks you are. But finding the people who like who you actually are.