Thank you for your bullying

Thank you.
Seriously, thanks a lot.
Thank you for making me feel like a fool.
Truly, my day would not have been complete without that comment.
Thanks for making my cheeks turn red
and for making my neck hurt cause as I tried to duck away from your comments too fast.
Thank you for hammering my self-esteem into the floor.
I found the basement.
It's nice and cold and sad down here, with cracked walls,
just like my heart every time you poke fun at it.
I have so many holes from your poking,
many tissues from your 'fun,'
many stairs to the basement, 
where sometimes I'd like to hide from you all day
and think of all the comebacks I'd say to you - if only I had the courage.
If only I knew the elevator from the basement was faster, and the tissues more absorbent,
maybe I could become more powerful.
Instead, I suck in your comments like wet cement and have them harden inside me. Sometimes it gets heavy. 
Thank you for that awful comment you said to me today,
the one that made people gasp and laugh,
the one that made a few brave individuals raise their voice, and tell you off,
the comment that led people to look through a curtain of hair and tear-stained eyelids at me
and coax me from my basement dwelling,
​not to joke, or to poke, or to plummet my pride to the ground 2 level,
but to pull me up from the cracked walls and frayed carpet.
Thanks for being a great big bully.
Truly, my time with your comments was completly healthy - only a few months of despair.
And thanks for making me feel like trash, forgotten in the basement.
If it wasn't for you, I never would have found my friends, who stood up for me today,
and made your head duck and your lips stutter.
Have fun in my basement, though I would never wish upon you a long visit. 
But I have claimed those stairs to better people, and enjoyable experiences. 
So, quite honestly,
like, seriously,
thank you.