I speak for the people out there in this world, in this town, in this school, in this very room

who find themselves wondering, “why are some people just such ignorant, arrogant jerks?!”

If I’m not conforming to the ideals that people follow and I find my own way,

those ignorant people stop and glare at me.

Their eyes pierce through the flesh and bone that make up my body-

they think they are tearing down who I am, but that is not who I am.

I am not just the body that stands before you.

I am the thoughts and mind and soul that comprise the parts of this body that can speak and

move and function and coincide with others to uphold the general theory that society is a

body.

A body of individuals.

Individuals that have their own thoughts, their own minds and their own ways of living.

Individuals that were put here to create their own paths leading to success and happiness and futures unimaginable;

because people, the arrogant and ignorant people that are just too full of themselves to see past what they are, those people shun us.

They ridicule us for being queer or weird or different in anyway.

But why?

How can they do such a thing when they too are different in the eyes of others?

For the people in the world that are bullied and beat down and told that they are no more than just flesh and bone,

I am speaking for you and using your voice to say

HEY!

Leave me alone!

I may be gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender or queer or straight but

it doesn’t matter!

I am me. I am who I want to be.

Just in the four walls trapping these halls in our school,

there are people like me striving and thriving and surviving the impertinent comments and nasty insults and destructive slang terms thrown in my way.

Criticism is one thing,

but the cruelty from those ignorant and rude is the downfall to the ones around me.

To those ignorant and used to the unforgiving remarks

I am telling you right now:

there is no future for you and what lies ahead.

There is no happiness to a person that spends all their time effortlessly spitting snide comments at those that wear a smile because they can look in a mirror and be happy with what they see.

There is no reason to put them down because when you do,

their mirrors will shatter.

Their eyes will tint with shades of red and gray and black and white

and they will no longer find their way.

To rid someone of their happiness is to send gunshots into their lives.

So for you I speak.

We are not just flesh and bone.

We are humans.

We are alive.

We are living in this world;

coexisting with all those phonies and the ignorance and the arrogance.

And we are better than you. We are accepting for who we are and what resides inside.

We are happy with the person within and there is nothing

NOTHING you can do to shatter the person I am in my heart and my soul!

I am me.

So stop putting me down and giving me shi-

Tell yourself...who the hell are you to be questioning me

when you don’t even see past yourself to realize life doesn’t need clones and drones.

The world needs real people.

The world needs individuals to set us all apart.

Without all of us, as different people doing different things and seeking different opportunities,

there is no society.

There is no body.

There is no world.

So next time you think about putting someone down,

think about who they really are.

Does it matter to you if they’re different?

Does it kill you?

No.