Handle With Care (Poetry)

Proud To Be Me

My mind is spinning
I can't think straight
Can't be straight
Tired of trying to fit myself into the box society has carved out for me
I am a cardboard copy
Of every label anyone has ever put on me
I am non-binary
But I will not let that define me
I will not let some bigot or some misguided fool
Determine who I can and cannot love
Because love for me, doesn't need anyone elses approval
It does not need any judgements placed upon it
I can hold my partners hand, without having to hear the words Faggot
But hate, hate is louder than love, hate is easier than love, hate spreads like wild fire, while love just waits to be accepted.
But while our voices go unheard, they are not silent.
They are a constant whisper in the background of every street corner
and city block
Of every mall, school hallway, they are whispering non-stop
A silence that travels through the minds of those who listen
Those who sit in their bedroom rooms, behind lock doors
Desperate to believe in something,
Other than what 'they' say.
Because they know, that there is something out there,
That there's something more, than just going to sleep each night on a wet pillow, where there tears are the only witnesses to their sorrow
Where they can scream as loud as they want, and have nobody hear.
Because nobody cares about them.
Or the thousands of kids who commit suicide every year because no one hears them. Because hate turns their screams into whisperes, that float among those too ignoarant to listen, as they go in one ear and out the other. Like some door you just slam on one another
An exit sign that leads to just another dead end
As another 15 year old boy hangs himself because no one wants to be his friend
Because society is not ready to accept that love has nothing to do with sex
That love is above our hearts and our minds, and what we feel and think
It doesn't care if  its two girls or two guys
But society would have us think otherwise
As it locks us behind the closet door; a coffin measuring eight by four
While we stuff ourselves in between the lines of some box
Desperate to make ourselves fit
Into pieces of cardboard, identitcal to one another.
Copies society has printed out for us, so that we can be equal
But we are originals
And there is no label wide enough to fit over the circumfrance of our personalities
Our individuality
But society will have us try  regardless.
Because society rather push us to contemplate suicide.
Than have us join together, and stand up for our pride.
Because the individual is easier to convince.
Than the community who knows that they deserve better than this.
Because the voices in that community are not silent, and when they join together, they are anything but a whisper.
They are a scream.
And they are screaming "I'm proud to be me"