Faggot

Do you see me?
      Do you hear me?


Do you understand
this feeling suffocating my mind, my heart and my emotional
stability every time you spit the hatred of your
misunderstanding
                    in the face
of my name by calling me…a faggot.

I was born this way so how dare you say
I’ve chosen to live this way; why would I chose
               to be abused
by the fists of the confused
who can’t grasp the fact that my genetics
formed the molecules of my heart

                and how dare you call me queer
just because I stand here
                  on the corner where
tears have marched for equality and where
the rights to love has stood in protest
for the freedom to wed/so why don’t you care?

There is no amount of force that can keep me
hidden and smothered inside a closet
with no air; there are not enough chains that can strangle
me inside a chamber afraid to be who I am
so go ahead and stare or is that your fear
                           calling me a faggot.

You called him a faggot; an eleven year old
with a happy smile who played on the playgrounds
of judgment with no protection from the laugher; no one to protect
him from difference giggling at his reflection.
He was so young but you told him he couldn’t
be because he was not what society wanted to see
                   so he hung his life so he could be free


and you called him a faggot; a college student
with a future giving in to his attraction.
He could’ve been/should’ve been a leader
an inventor or the first gay president
but all his dreams drowned when your ridicule
           and embarrassment took precedent
evicting himself from being a resident
in your shelter of hostility.

I was born this way and so were they;
so how dare you say we choose to live this way
and be murdered every day by the bullets
of closed mindedness flying array. But I will stand strong
for them; I will be strong for them;
I will define strength for them

and I will never surrender to your ignorance
so I dare you to call me a faggot.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan