Author's Notes
Governor’s School
Our time here is done,
we have to get back to work.
Back to high school in the fall.
Without any sacrifices of business kids to fear,
no more 'your mom' joke fun,
and a lot less eating of ice cream.
How we loved that ice cream.
The endless amounts of it are done.
It tasted good after our hard
work.
On ice cream you could slip and
fall,
but that wasn't our biggest fear,
because with ice cream came fun.
Most of our experiences were fun,
the trip to
At least we know our friendships
are not done.
Well have to communicate to make
it work,
recollecting our times here, entering the fall.
Being seen with our dork badge is
no longer a fear.
Departing our friends brings us fear.
At least our time together was fun,
making delicacies with our ice cream.
Remembering
forever, even though our time is done.
Thinking of the fun we had while at work,
We’ll have those times with us in
the fall.
At Governor's school we had to do
homework.
causing us to sometimes sleep and fall.
Getting caught sleeping was
everyone's biggest fear,
being late was even less fun.
Certainly less fun than eating ice
cream,
Because being late often meant you
were done.
We’re all done with presentations
and with community work.
We took the big fall and together
faced our biggest fear
Of the fun of getting to know each
other and leaving behind our ice cream
Just like you
Oblivious to the pain caused
with continuance of habits
and breaking of family laws.
Push everyone with a shove,
the bottle always inhibits
someone's ability to love.
Dripping of the drink into glass;
decisions you can't take back.
The inability to pass.
The outcome is sad but so true.
The hate is there for one reason,
the fear of becoming like you.
T.V. Takeover
While I sit here, in the middle of
the room,
I think about how ironic the situation is.
They hold the button to my life,
yet I hold the power over theirs.
They gaze at me with moronic stares
for the majority of the day.
Watching my useless drabble
instead of going outside to play.
I am certainly king of this household,
holding their attention and determining actions.
They look as though they are zombies,
like the ones they see and fear on me.
I maintain power over all of them,
the young and the old.
I hold the power to make them laugh, cry, or scream.
Dulling minds and wrecking imagination.
What was once a temple of creativity
is forever changed into conformity.
Soon, I gather, they won't be able to turn me off;
their independence will be dependent of me.
They will stare at the spots of static on my screen,
and I will have absolute control, someday.
As soon as I convince them to never push the button.
When
When all you have is nothing
but the clothes upon your back,
When the ones once closest to you
their friendship you now lack,
When nothing could possibly get worse
then the rain pours on your back,
When the whole world seems against you
so bitter, cold, and black,
When you crawl into your little space
and cry because your scared,
When you finally find the courage
to put the knife up to your skin,
Remember me, my friend,
because I've always cared.
Taking A Stand
"Beep, Beep,
Beep", the alarm clock screamed for me to get up. After violently
silencing the interruption, I forced myself out of bed. I reached for the
nearest pair of jeans and threw on my red hooded sweatshirt over the shirt I
had worn to bed the night before as I do most other school days. When I looked
down to find my worn-out sneakers, I noticed my daily planner open to today's
date. The bright pink letters stared at me. “Speech
Today!" Shit. I had totally forgotten about that being today. I
frantically tried on some new, more professional looking clothes. Unfortunately
I didn't quite look as professional as I wanted when I looked into the mirror
and all I saw was a tangled mass of brown hair. I fought with it in order to
tame it, but finally decided to just pull it back into a messy bun. When I did
that, I noticed a huge zit on my forehead. I applied some makeup on it, but my
efforts were useless. Throwing my hands up in an exasperated effort, I walked
out the door to my car. I cringed as I thought of what else could go wrong
today.
On my way to
school I went through the speech in my head even though I had been practicing
it non-stop all week. This of course had only been because I had received
relentless comments about my piece's topic: Equal Gay Rights. I shook my head.
I had finally found something I was passionate about, but it also turned out
that the majority of my high school was passionate about disliking same-sex
marriage. The fact that I just happened to live in a small rural town in
In a way, I feel ashamed for being too nervous to speak my mind. I do feel homosexuals deserve equal treatment and I would want nothing more than to help gays achieve this, but at the same time the people at school weren’t helping me out much. All week long, the boys in my classes had been making comments about my topic. I cringed at the thought that people's opinions of me would change because of my speech.
“You seriously think those faggots should get married?” said one of the boys from my class loudly.
"Yeah", I replied quietly.
"Are you a lesbian?" another guy who just happened to be the class clown piped in.
"No, I just think everyone should be treated fairly", I retorted quietly.
He said teasingly,
“But gays are disgusting….well, unless it's two girls." I just shook my
head and rolled my eyes.
Conversations like this had littered my social life for the past week. My anger and feelings of unfairness swelled inside me. I hate how I can’t choose to say what I believe and not be made fun of for it or thought of differently. The decision to voice my opinions was certainly not the easiest path to follow. All I could think about was how to get out of doing my speech. I slinked into the school anticipating more bias comments, but I was only greeted by my friend Miranda.
"Are you ready?” she asked.
"No, I'm nervous", I mumbled.
"Oh come on, you're the golden girl who does everything perfect. You can't be nervous.” she said.
"Yeah, but it's kind of hard doing something so racy. I haven't exactly received much support on it from people around here.” I replied.
"That sucks,
but don't let it get to you, it will all blow over", she said.
"I hope so", I said.
The bell rang so
we walked to our first class in the study hall and hurriedly sat down. I took
out my note cards covered in color-coded main points and looked them over. I
organized the rest of my materials hoping that it would help my grade to be
organized since I knew I was going to blow my speech. As I was doing that, a
good-looking boy who was in an upper grade saw my articles on same-sex marriage
and made a disgusted face. He said, “You’re that girl that loves homos. I can’t
believe you like those fags. You know they say that you're a lesbian."
My face reddened and I hid my stuff while saying,
“Yeah that’s me, and no I'm not a lesbian."
"Whatever",
he said unbelievingly.
My body stiffened. I felt overwhelmed by the thought that people were discussing me....in a bad way. Why do people think someone is homosexual if they support gay rights? The whole standing up for what I believe in thing is getting way too hard. I can't stand everyone talking about me, let alone them talking about a lie behind my back. I thought of only one solution: I have to tell my English teacher that I can't do it today. I’ll tell him that I'll pick a new topic and go on Friday, but I can't do a speech on gay marriage. No matter how much I believe that homosexuals do need equal treatment, I’m not sure that it outweighs the cost of my reputation. I signed out of study hall walked down the hallway to my English teacher’s classroom. When I approached the room, I overheard him talking on the phone to someone.
"You wouldn't
believe what some of my English kids are doing for speech this year. I have
this one girl who is giving a speech on equal gay rights. Isn't that great? I
read her outline and it was outstanding. I noticed that she's been getting a
hard time for it, but she's sticking it through. I just know she's going to
nail it. The funny thing is that at the beginning of the year she hardly spoke
in class and now she is doing this. It's amazing what these kids can accomplish
when they work on something they feel strongly about."
A smile crept on
my face and with it, some confidence. After listening to that, I felt
invincible, at least for a moment. He actually thought I had potential. I
couldn't tell him I didn't want to do it anymore. He was so happy that I chose
something out of the norm and was even looking forward to my speech. I'd just
have to face the ridicule and get it over with.
The bell signaled
the end of first hour and began my decent into hell. “Its show time”, I
thought. When I sat down in my desk, I felt as though I was going to vomit. The
butterflies were going so crazy in my stomach, I started to shake. I fought for
my one last hope: not having to go first. Sure enough though, my English
teacher said, “Dakota, you’re up.”
My breaths quickened. My palms began to sweat. The muscles in my throat constricted. After desperately trying to control my bodily functions, I gave up and decided to hope for the best. I finally managed to get up and I walked towards my English teacher and handed him my materials. I slowly walked to the front of the room and stared at the twenty pairs of eyes staring back at me. I felt like fainting. "Okay Dakota, you can start", said my teacher. I thought as I took a deep breath and began:
"Faggot...
Homo... Fairy...Queer... These are all names yelled at a college student named
Matthew Sheperd as two young men tied him to a fence
and brutally beat him until his death on
As I continued, I
was shocked that everyone was actually paying attention to what I had to say. I
also listened to myself talking and noticed that my words weren't coming out
jumbled, but clear and crisp. The words and order were coming out perfect and I
actually made sense and sounded convincing. No one was even making faces at
what I had to say or snickering while I spoke.
Before I knew it, my speech was over and I was receiving applause. I took my seat and waited for the criticism to pour in. To my surprise, I only received good comments from those around me. I smiled. “That was excellent Dakota. That was one of the best English class speeches I've ever heard.” my teacher said.
"Thanks", I said still smiling.
“The only thing
wrong was that you talked a little too fast, other than that you maintained eye
contact well, your presence was amazing, and your materials and arguments were
well researched", he said.
After class, the boys even came up to me and congratulated me. I hadn't convinced any of them to change their mind, but at least I made an impression. My English teacher even asked me to do my speech in competition. I told him I would think about it, but I'm pretty sure I’m going to do it. It will be tough delivering the same speech to strangers and having to witness what I'm sure will be a wide range of reaction, but the satisfaction I receive from standing up for what I believe in outweighs the negative aspect. And to think, I almost decided not to do it simply because of what other people would think of me.