Who am I, you ask?

How long do you have?

To well meaning "adults" I am simply data within a system.

A system that determines your worth on sets of numbers and labels.

After all, I'm just a 2.9 GPA on a scale of stress and disappointment.

as if this set of numbers can measure the complexity,

the beauty and pain of a human life.

I have watched as this simple set of numbers have driven minds mad,

heard the tortured cries of mindlessly lost children who watch as the blood falls,

falls from their scarred hearts and open wounds.

I have seen them develop personalities made of tests and pills,

seen them try to kill themselves because they can't reach that elusive 4.0,

and thought to myself, I can't let this become me.

 

I am a young mind

like clay meant to be reshaped and remoulded

reformed into your idea of the perfect person

as you try to reshape the way I think and feel

and shape your own self-idealizations and obligations,

reinforcing your stereotypes and limited world-views

because of course, if someone's different, are they inferior?

Helplessly I become the one who stands by as more and more die

in wars that we fight only to further our own gains.

What more must we do?

As bullets rain from the sky

more and more children pray, the altar crumbles

just because we don't see the similarities in our eyes.

 

You say I'm a good person?

That's what my friends say too.

I'm the perfect shoulder to cry one.

When Maria's boyfriend broke up with her

and she spent all those sleepless nights lying awake

as the tears slide down her face

When the little monsters in her head show themselves,

poisoning her thoughts and her trembling hands reach out,

towards the phone, 

who was the first person she called?

But I didn't answer, but that was because

I already stood outside in the rain with soggy Chinese takeout.

 

But you know what?

I'm more complex than all these things they say I am.

Who should I be when all these people are telling me what to believe?

I'll tell you who I really am.

I am a mover and a shaker.

I am a doer of wonders and a dreamer of dreams.

I am the spirit of curiousity

guiding humanity as we wonder about the stars and long to join them

I am the process of invention

watching silently as man took its first steps from the dark to the light

I am the feeling of exhiliration

soaring through the skies as a man with a dream was the first to fly.

I am me, and there is nothing you can do to change that.