I walk down the hall,
And you yell
"Faggot!"
I sit in my desk
And you mock the words
I've written down
Because of people like you.
You can see my red eyes
And red wrists,
And still --
You persist.
It is people like you
Who made me cry,
And people liek you
Who led to the scars on my forearm.
It is people like you
Who made me fear school
And people like you
Who give being my friend a difficult job description.
The school says they won't
Tolerate people like you,
But they don't know
That when you've been bullied your whole life,
You start to think you deserve it.
And they don't know that
calling me a faggot
Hurts all the more --
Because it's true.
So because you don't like
that I wear blazers and ties
Instead of sweaters and skirts,
You think it's okay
To take away a person's will to live?
Is that your justification for playing God?
You hate that I played
football not house,
And that I revered
GI Joe and not Barbie,
So you say so in the
Cruelest way everyday
I try to learn.
How can I take a test when the words
you posted online last night
are still fresh in my mind?
How can I take notes when
I can hear you whispering behind me?
How can Iearn
To love myself
When I have to build
Walls around my heart
Every night in the hopes
That your sieges won't bring
them down the next day?
But now, when those walls
Have been leveled not by
People like you,
But by allies,
As the divide in Berlin fell not to armies,
But to citizens of the world,
I see that I am strong.
I've endured,
And I have grown thick skin,
And I have learned to survive
People like you.
