Many nights kids lie in bed going over what friends have said to them during the day. Did she mean that or didn't she, and if he said that how come he calls himself my friend? PNS commentator Kiana Davis writes about what it's like to be on the receiving end of teasing. Davis is on the staff of YO! (Youth Outlook), a newspaper by and about Bay Area teens produced by Pacific News Service.

If they're your friends, why do they hurt your feelings?

All my life I have been teased. Even people who didn't know me would come up to me and say, "You're ugly!" I'd go home and cry myself to sleep. I've hated going to school and tried to avoid it just so I won't have to face the crowd of kids who tease me. At night I lay in bed and thought about how the world would be without me, and cried because I felt unwanted and unloved.

A typical encounter with teasers goes like this. You're walking down the hall with your friends and suddenly one of them busts out with, "I saw your mama walking the streets late last night!" Everyone laughs. You stand there like you've just been punched in the stomach. All you can say is, "Shut up, it's not true!" But no one takes your side and you feel left out, like the whole world's against you.

Recently I heard a girl at school tell another girl that if she looked like me, she'd kill herself. I disappeared around the corner and thought about what she'd said. I figured I must be a really ugly, terrible person. In my U.S. History class there's a boy who says things like, "When are you going to get some new shoes?" I look down at my shoes in disgust. I wash them as often as I can, but someone always has something to say.

The worst is my American Literature class which is so out of control that the students can say whatever they want to me and get away with it. If I try to defend myself they tell me to shut up. While I'm in this class, I keep my mouth shut.

Why do kids tease each other? I think they're hurting inside over something else -- abuse at home, or a broken heart -- so they come to school and pick on me. But that's hard to remember when I'm always the victim -- I can't see beyond the words that are thrown at me. Teachers say "ignore it," but the words keep playing in my mind like a tape recorder stuck on rewind.