Point them; flex them;
Point them; flex them;
Put them in your
Lap, lap, lap.

She was my mentor
My first teacher
My friend.

Fifteen years
I knew her.
Or did I?

First tap,
then jazz,
ballet was short.
Then I met her again
in modern.

This was the last time
she would be my friend.
Gradually,
she would become my enemy.

I would see her now and again
each time, getting more and more
fire up and down my veins.

Until one day,
the last day,
that was it.

A simple hello
sent tears rushing
down my face.

Never has a simple
greeting been more empty.
Never have your words stung so deep.
Never will they again.

Thirty.
Thirty dead.
Forty-two injured.
In forty-eight hours.
Two hundred and fifty mass shootings in eight months.
Thousands dead.

Are you kidding?
Is this really what we are?
It's not the time to talk about gun laws?
SHOW ME A BETTER ******* TIME!
People are dying at elementary schools, at bars, at Walmart!

I tried to be sensible.
I tried to see both sides.
But I can't anymore.

These aren't just numbers.
These are people.
These are lives.
These are stories.
These are husbands and wives, children, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends.
One death does not only impact one person.
In fact, the dead has the least amount of pain.
That one dead impacts hundreds of lives.
A lifetime of sadness.
I feel for the victims, I do.
But I ache for the families.
For the friends.
For the community.
I ache for the shooter, for his family.

He did awful things.
Unspeakable crimes.
There is nothing worse than taking a life.
But he is gone too.
His family lost someone too. Someone they loved.
Someone they cared about.
Their lives are forever changed, as well.

We need to change these idiotic laws.
We are the only respected nation with mass shootings in the double digits.
Hell, we have TRIPLE digits!
Gun ownership is NOT a right.
Gun ownership should not be a right.
I have said this more times than I can count.
IS YOUR RIGHT TO A GUN MORE ******* IMPORT THAN MY RIGHT, OR ANYONE ELSES RIGHT, TO LIVE?
Dear Mr. Gun Lover, sir, if you have a right, a truly inalienable right, than so do these shooters.
Please don't let the number become two hundred and fifty one.
It is on you. It is on all of us.

My home.
Destroyed.
Fifteen years.

I left.
On my own terms;
at peace.
But I thought I could always come back.
That it would always be
my home.

And now it's gone.
One by one, the pieces trickle.
The people. The place.
What's next?
The memories?
I don't want them lost.
I don't want them tainted.
My jacket. Oh, god, my jacket.
Soaked in tears, sweat, love.

It's branded with your name.
With our name.
And now that name is gone.
And the one in its place is filled with sorrow.
You are no longer there.
It is no longer home.

Fifteen years.
I'm sorry.
I promised you I would come back.
I promised you but a week ago.
But oh, what a week will bring.
Friend, my dear, sweet friend,
I cannot come back.
This is no longer my home.
It is just a place,
Located just outside of my heart.

I like to believe that all people
Are good.
Are kind.
Are human.

But days like today
it's hard to believe.

It's hard to distrust yourself.
To want to believe so badly
that what you know is the truth.

That people are inherently good.
That people are inherently kind.
That people believe that other people
are human.
Are in the same boat.

But yet,
we belittle.
We mock.
We hate.

And why?
Why would someone need to do harm?
Want to do harm?
Why would someone
want to belittle?
Want to mock?
Want to hate?

Why don't others want good?
Want kindness?
Want love?

We learn the golden rule when we are little.
Treat others how you want to be treated.
Is this how you want to be treated?
This is not right.
This is wrong.
Hate is wrong.
You are wrong.

Does that mean that I am correct?
Absolutely not.
One thing I have learned,
one thing I hate to admit,
is that people are never an extreme.
People are never truly, utterly evil,
but they aren't inherently good either.
I am not inherently good.

There is hate in this world,
but there is also love.
And on days like today,
where the hate is surrounding us,
that is what I am going to cling to.
The good.
The kind.
The human.

Because at the end of the day,
we all have one thing in common.
We're human.

Friends.
If you don't stay close,
you'll lose them.

I don't want to lose them.
They're brand new.
It's only been five years.
It can't be time, right?
It can't be time.

I've spent so long wanting
a big group of friends.
When I was little,
I had a giant group,
an imaginary group.
They always left at the end of playtime.

You, you don't leave.
I think of you when we're away.
I text you, I see you.
You're real.
Stay real.
Please, stay real.

I want to hangout,
I want to be friends.
Yes, school is over.
Yes, I am going away.

I will no longer get to ask what
we're doing in third period,
or what was that last step in the choreography.
But we can still eat ice cream.
We can still laugh, smile, and love.

We can still be friends.
The distance can't ruin that.
Or can it?

Fifteen.
For fifteen years you were my home.
For fifteen years you kept me from the rain.
You were there when my parents were late at work.
You were there when I needed a place to love.
You were there when I needed a place to call home.

You were my friends.
You were my family.
You taught me how to love.
You taught me happiness.
You taught me that I could call you home.
And you were the one who slammed the door in my face.

Over.
And over.
And over again.

You said you wanted this to be a place of inclusiveness,
and you were the one who made me feel alone.
Alone.

So often was I there when you cried.
So often did you say you were proud of me.
So often did you call me a friend.
But that's not what you showed me.

From you I learned pain. From you I felt alone.
And you said no one was ever alone.
For fifteen years I called you my home.
But you never were.

And now I say goodbye.
Now I leave.
You gave me a rose, but I left with thorns.

And I thank you for that.
I thank you for the love.
I thank you for the friends.
I thank you for the family.
But just because you gave me my family;
does not mean you were mine.

You changed, and not for the better.
I sit here in this jacket.
Your name stitched across the top.
My real family in my pocket.

Thank you for the memories, but
I will not forget.
I will never forget how I felt when I left.
Alone.

God, Yahweh, Allah
The beliefs are almost always the same;
it's just that the histories are different.
At heart, you want the same things.

Everybody wants to believe in a higher power.
Everybody wants to belong to something
bigger than themselves.
Everybody wants there to be
a force of good on earth.

Religions have much,
much more in common
then they like to admit.

They want to be able
to prove their belief
and their belonging.
They want to touch the enormity.

Race is purely a social construction.
No matter our religion or gender or race
or geographic background,
it's only our inability to realize
that we all have about 98 percent
in common with each other.

It's only in the finer points
that it gets complicated
and contentious.

We like to focus on
the 2 percent that's different,
and most of the conflict
in the world comes from that.