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Categories, names, standards…LABELS

In these days, unsaid standards circulate throughout
the schools, the workplace…
“You need to be this, not that…” are the words that
line these hallways in my eyes, words that
echo in my ears and haunt my heart…
The jocks, the nerds, the preps…the outcasts, the
weirdoes…
And yet, nobody sees the lost…if they do, nothing is
done about it…they just stand
there and watch
them fade away…

Many of us label one another, even though we may not
entirely understand what is going on…and in
saying so, we are all categorized by others…
Bound down by chains of expectation and forced into
silence because of who we are EXPECTED to be…
This mold that we think everybody else is put in…the previously set expectations…
And when the most is broken…when somebody is “different”…they are treated so…

And many schools refuse to recognize this rising “problem” among the students…
The bullying, the rejection…
It affects far more than just the people who are bullied
Imagine how the parents feel…when their child comes home crying because of the way they were treated
…and how many their cries fall on deaf ears…
And in the worst case scenario, takes their life by their own hands…
I know how it feels…and it is like a ripple in a pond, spreading…affecting more and more people

We need to let their broken voices be heard, instead of act as if nothing is wrong…
Ignorance may be bliss, but it comes at a dire cost of another…
To take a stand, to be somebody who isn’t afraid to face certain consequences…
If it changes the way some people think, or even save a life or two…it would all be worth it
What I would do if I could open the eyes of some of the people I’ve known…

I may be alone, but I stand by the outcasts…
I may be looked down upon for befriending them, but I know that they need somebody too
I’m afraid to stand out and openly argue, but my heart whispers for me to be next to them…
Maybe because I once stood where they stand…
Maybe it’s because I know how it feels…
Maybe it’s because I don’t want anybody else to go through what I have…
Maybe because, deep down, I know I want change…
The way the world has become, the way the people have changed…

If only it can all be changed…