• You all know,
    People can be cruel.
    “Why do you talk like that?”
    “No one listens to that kind of music, turn it off!”
    It’s always the people who don’t even know you
    Or have any affiliation with you whatsoever.
    But you know what they say,
    ‘Ignorance is bliss’.
    “She ain’t all that.”
    “She’s weird.”
    You often wonder.
    ‘Does this make them happy?’
    Absorbing your happiness just to satiate their appetites?
    “Is that a weave?”
    “Hey, let the white girl through!”
    You’re always having to work alone
    No one volunteers to be in your group…
    No one recognizes your potential…
    Our potential.
    “You ain’t special.”
    “Oh, I forgot you were in my class.”
    We place the headphones in our ears
    To clear our minds of the negativity.
    We pick up the controllers
    To escape from the false reality.
    “Girls don’t play videogames. Grow up!”
    “You don’t have a life.”
    Its statements like these that make us lose our confidence.
    Its statements like these that cause us to run and hide.
    But they’re wrong.
    We don’t have to listen to them
    We don’t have to be one of the “cool kids”.
    We don’t have to be swept into the mainstream like everyone else.
    We don’t even have to be the best at everything.
    Yes, some of this seems trivial
    But certain words impact some more than others.
    So, who cares if I don’t know all the latest slang?
    Or all the lyrics to the most popular music, today?
    So what if I’d rather sit in the back of the room and draw my own characters for a future comic?
    So what if I bring my Yu-Gi-Oh cards almost everywhere I go in case of a challenge?
    Or still play Pokemon?
    Or emulate games to my computer?
    Or sometimes stay up all night just to beat that
    One, annoying boss that just won’t die already?
    So what if I don’t take that 15-minute break
    In between every hour of gameplay?
    So what if I never had to pay for a song in my life?
    And I’m still in the top 10 of my class.
    That’s what I call being original.