The world that surrounds us is full of slogans like

Just be you! Just be true! You don't have to fight!

Yet our minds are assaulted by the opposite sight

From the minute we're birthed

to the moment of death

we're given one life to lead

one long drawn out breath

No matter whom we're taught to fear

or of whom we're taught to steer clear

 we're still taught to hate 

and at an astounding rate

we'll end up falling blindly into self-inflicted, self-induced perdition

in an illusionary rebellion

a blanket statement of "protection" against tradition

 

If the whole world is taught to hate a certain type of person

or only accept yourself if you're of this certain persuasion

where do we fall?

if we're the in between of the generation.

 

I am.

Mexican

American

in the midst of a battle on immigration

 

I am a...

Gay

Christian

In the midst of a battle on identification

 

So what is the resolve?

Make our own decisions

Write our own prescriptions

Begin a revolution of making it alone

 

I refuse such a life

A place where we are taught to hate

to defy fate

and to have it our own way

I am wholly and completely of a defiant breed

A one who encourages servitude, fortitude, and humility as true need

 

There is a poisonous lie creeping though churches, and government buildings

through institutions of education

and parades of jubilation

that we are forever destined to go it alone

that if one doesn't accept you, you must build your own throne

gather your own kingdom and ride off into the sunset

we've laid down our swords 

forgotten who to fight for

and what it means to push forward

to gather the strength to be weak

to find the pride to be humble

and to have two legs strong enough to bow down

At the end of the day 

when all the pains put away

and we're taught to live in dismay 

of our wayward way

I scream, "REJOICE!"

In the fact that we live

that we have free and open choice!

 

I find joy in the fact that I serve a God, who would lay down His life

That His love is not bound to a building or a specific flavor of strife

 

So I can not

and will not 

follow the line a culture

which demands I identify with one side or the other

I am who I am

and that is a child of God

 

There is no safety in groups of identity

There is no freedom in titles

no comfort in slogans

or comfortable role models

 

No matter whom I meet with

and with whose pain I can relate

every fiber of my being

refuses to learn to hate