Unlabel

and we do this because we were told to do it.
We listened.
We were trained to use labels.
We are masters of classification.
There’s an evolutionary trait
That taught us how to distinguish between ourselves and the other.
They told us we can’t help this.

I call bullshit.
You can do whatever you want, whenever you want to.
Try it.
Do what you want….

Am I crunchy?
I eat organic, buy local, and I waste not…
but I love guns.

I’m pro food stamps and social security and I really think privatization can suck it,
But I’d love to cut taxes on all small businesses.
Am I a Democrat? Or a Republican?

I’m pro-choice and anti misogyny, but I’ll defend someone’s right to hate.

I love some people who are gay, would fight to let them have all the same rights as anyone else,
and I think marriage is stupid, outdated–
I don’t care for pieces of paper
from lettered organizations of imposed authority
to tell me my love is legitimate.
What do acronyms know of love?
Am I an anti-establishment rebel?

I’m  a teacher and I bleed to help my students
meet standards crafted by rhetoric, pass tests graded by robots
and fulfill all boxed requirements to graduate –
Will you call me upstanding? Honorable?
Through my veil of red I see our system kill creativity,
Demolish natural intelligence
And crush intrinsic strengths because strong is not what capitalism needs.
I know we could do better.
I’m a teacher and I would not require school, if I could,
I would make it voluntary.
Will you call me anarchist?

I think drugs should be legal and free. Always.
Our minds are our own and our lives are our own and
No gov’t should be able to abridge our mental sovereignty.
Do you label me irresponsible?
I think we should work as a society to help people heal from drug abuse
And promote health for everyone.
What am I now?

I think that women are actually better at some things than men
and that men are better at some things than women.
Would you call me brainwashed?
If we don’t work to undo our cultural programming, we continue to produce
rape culture,
abuse culture,
and the objectification of our mothers, daughters, and grandmas.
Am I now a feminist?

I look white. I am. I’m native, too. Do you want me to be called mixed?
I grew up with no ethnic culture….can you mix nothing with nothing?

I called a girl “sir” once, it hurt her feelings. It hurt mine.
I called a girl “she” once, it hurt his feelings. It hurt mine.

I’ve blended together bits of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Pantheism, Shamanism and Atheism
And you’d never be able to tell any of that by what I wear,
What I say,
What I do.
You’ll never catch me in a church.
You’ll never see me claiming identity from an institution….
But I’ll never waiver from my own deep, guiding brand of faith.
Will you call me confused?

I’m a consumer of information, of current trends, of mass happenings
And still I don’t swallow anything they’re feeding me without tearing it apart first

Because there is a reason they’re trying to convince me-
I want to know what the reason is.
No matter your facts, your data, or your source I will question what you bring me
…and you will call me an ultimate relativist…or a conspiracy theorist.
Won’t you?

I am none of these things.
I am not the thoughts I think or the clothes I wear or the sex I was born with.
I am not the words I say or the things I do.
I am an ever-changing being, born to live until I die, born to thrive in any moment I come upon.

I am unconstrained,
Like you:
Free.