When you hear silence,
I hear millions of voices,
Too scared to speak out.
Too scared to lose everything.
Too scared because they are afraid that you’re going to hurt them.
Punch them, kick them, slam them into the lockers.
Stick their head into the filthy toilets.
Terrified to hear those homophobic slurs.
Yeah, the ones that seem to be the only thing in your vocabulary.
Petrified that they are going to get kicked out of their home.
That their families won’t love them anymore.
That they’ll never be accepted.

When you hear silence,
I hear all the voices that were silenced by death.
The words you use to make yourself feel “more like a man”,
Actually do cause significant damage.
They leave emotional scars that will never go away.
You make someone feel so horrible that they feel the need to make your life easier.
But it doesn’t.
Once they’re gone all you can think about is how much of your fault it is.

When you hear silence,
Try to think of all the voices that you can't hear.