Emily Worrell Poppy Oilver Her Darling Sparrow Artemis Hunter Tatiana Hissey

I am a I am a Pufferfish Pufferfish

Anneka Chang Naomi Bacchus

Identity. What is identity? What is MY identity? This question is significant to define who I am and act as a person in society. Some might find understanding and discovering their own identity difficult. For me, to simplify the harsh reality of how complicated one’s identity is, I am just like a pufferfish.

Pufferfish are very different from other fish you might see. It doesn’t have that shiny slick scale layer; it doesn’t have prepossessing colours that reflect on its skin; it doesn’t have the exquisite looks that other fish possess; it’s just disparate.

Society is just a replication of the marine world. Everyone would be put in groups and they represent their own race. To be at a boarding school filled with native students, I am a pufferfish trying to fit into a group of clownfish. I distance myself from the others because I just couldn’t fit in. I was the exotic one, the one that would receive the questionable glares and the victim of being odd. I looked different. They had glossy gratifying skin and I had spikes. They had nice big blue eyes and I had thin black ones. I was nowhere near looking like them. So I distance. I turn and swim away, finding my own pals, other pufferfish.

Treading away with a small back view, the monstrous ones tower over me and throw me around as if I were just a piece of dust. One might think I wouldn’t do anything about it for I was just that weary weakling that had to trouble itself with the situation of how to fit in. But as a pufferfish, maybe I am odd. Maybe, I am unique. Maybe, I was exceptional and maybe, I should be proud of it! So if the prodigious sharks were to open ’my gateway to heaven’ (the mouth of a shark), why don’t I just stand up for myself? Why don’t I just shield myself if no one would help the peculiar, puzzling being in this society? Why don’t I make use of those unsightly spikes and stop those razor-edged teeth from chomping me down by being menacing? It was the way to live a fair life. Pointing out how wrong their deeds were, fight back at them and maybe even disparaging them a little if situation allows, that’s what being eccentric taught me. To look timid doesn’t make you fragile. If even the most miniature mouse could scare the tremendous elephant away, then why can’t the odd one with natural born advantages do the same?

Pufferfish. What is a pufferfish? What is so special about a pufferfish? Well. It is what defines my identity. I am special, and I shine in my own way. I believe that no one ever has to know what I have done well. All I need is to know I did well and surpass my goals. I don’t think I need other people’s opinions for this is my identity. MY identity. Emma Tagliarini Katie Roberts