i once had a teacher who gave out hats to her students.
everyone received the same colour. except me. mine was blue.

“you’re special,” she said, sarcasm laced through her voice like a thread pulled too tight, a devilish smirk stitched into her face.
the others watched with knowing glances, with a flicker of amusement, as if they were in on a secret i hadn’t yet earned.

i wore it everywhere. proudly. naively.
not realising it had been chosen to mark me, to separate, to shame.
to set me apart in the cruelest way.

it even had my name stitched on the brim, a quiet punishment sewn into fabric.
i thought it meant i mattered. i didn’t know it was so i’d never forget who it belonged to.

back then, i didn’t know that mockery could look like kindness.
didn’t know that cruelty doesn’t always shout, sometimes it laughs, sometimes it teaches.

evil doesn’t always wear horns or red.
sometimes it wears pearls and stands at a chalkboard.
sometimes it hands you a blue hat and calls it a gift.

her name was borrowed from a saint: st. benilde.
funny, how names can lie. how holiness can be draped over harm, how some teachers teach lessons they never speak aloud.

but here’s the truth:

i still wear the hat.
not as a scar,
but as a crown.
because i outgrew their smallness.
i became more than she ever imagined.
because what was meant to humiliate me became mine alone to define.

and no one,
not even her,
will ever know
what the blue hat meant.