I'm different—
I get it.
I don’t speak the way you do,
I eat diversity for breakfast,
I don’t act like your mirror.

But I’m human.
Equally important.
Equally supreme.

Give it a rest—
I demand order.
I demand respect.
I should be treated as such.

I don’t wear inferiority
Like a badge I didn’t earn.
I won’t sit with minds
That think I’m beneath them—
When we all know
I’m the opposite.

You judge my roots
Like they shame me—
But they feed me.
They bloom strength
You’ve only ever tried to steal.

It’s a joke to you—
But my kind don’t spend their days
Belittling you.
They have positive change
They need to make
With their time.

To extricate myself from thoughts
That drown me—
Isn’t harm.
It’s healing.
It’s clear water.

Where I grow
Is not your prison of fear.
It’s the place
They wish they belonged—
Because I carry
What they could never hold.