(14) 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence: Brave Enough to Be Ourselves

“Brave Enough to Be Ourselves”

By Pi and Zee

We are born into this world

Free, so to speak

Free from self-consciousness

Not yet bound

By restrictions,

Expectations on who to love or

Predetermined definitions of who we are

When we, ourselves, are on the road to discovering

In search of that which might not be definable

Because one awakening leads to another

Tangling into the intricacies of you and me

Caught up in a web

You, me, we

We are all bound together

Seemingly different,

Some driven by fear

To hate that which they do not understand

If only they could see

Love is our common denominator

We are only human after all

Though we should never forget our history

Because life comes with its privileges

Let us undo the assumptions,

The prejudice

Let us learn to walk in each other’s shoes

To see the world from different eyes

Open our horizons

Let us open our hearts and begin to listen

We are so much more than what they say a “boy” or “girl” ought to be

We express ourselves so much more broadly than

Any boxes set for us

Our true selves will break free of society’s cages

And in this world

Though others may try to contain our love

And who we can and cannot love

Repression breeds resistance

Time and again we will defy any barriers imposed on us

Because love knows no bounds

We are you and you are us

We are your mothers, your fathers

Your sisters, your brothers

Your friends, your neighbors

The workers all around you

You are not alone

When the rain falls

it doesn’t fall on one person’s house

Your pain is our pain

But it doesn’t get better unless we work together

To build a new society

One where we learn to love ourselves and others for who we are

Differences are what make us special and unique

No more separate but equal

No more silencing our voices

The truth will set us free

Though we should all have the right to love

And to be ourselves

We have to fight for that right

Reclaim the beautiful richness of our identities

Because we come in all shapes, sizes, and shades

Let us not be used to wage their unjust wars upon our own

Let us fight alongside each other

In this society of profit over people

To invert the triangle

And take back our humanity