Who are you to advise who I should be?
Why have I been told to not be who I am?

Do not pursue teaching, you'll work a luckless and poor career. You'll devote your life to an occupation that won't put food on your table, you better marry rich Megan.

Do not love like you do, it's is overwhelming. It is too intense, too encompassing. It is the ocean- unpredictable and vast. Do not love me like that, I can't handle your love. Do not cry oceans, do not have streams down your cheeks. Do not feel, do not express yourself. Please don't.

Do not love who you want to love. It is too difficult to explain, accept and live with the fact that you may love someone with the same chromosomes as you.

Do not dance at your leisure, you cannot hold the beat or sway to the rhythm. There is a time and place for expressing your joys, remember that.

Do not cut your hair for it was so beautiful when in cascaded down your back.

Do not pierces your nose, people don't like metal in your nostril and god forbid you puncture a hole and stick a diamond in your pretty face.

Do not wear the short shorts, the baggy tshirts, the sandals with socks, the buns on the sides of your head, the face make up. You know those all mean you want it, you're lazy, you're unfashionable, you're a wanna-be, you're a try-hard who cares too much.

Who decided one day I couldn't be who I was born to be? Who decided I wasn't able to being myself and being okay as is?

Today I decided I will be the high school English teacher and I will change lives with my big heart and encompassing love. I will inspire through my educating hands and words. I will love who I love with all I have in my soul. I will dance in dead silence, in the rain and in the middle of a song. I cut my hair and it'll grow back. It always does. Metal in my nose made me no less beautiful, I was beautiful before it and I can be beautiful without it. I will wear the ******* shorts and let my thighs shake, I will do my hair as I please, I will wear the baggy tshirts because they are comfortable, I will wear and say and do and be whoever I want to be.

I am a combination of atoms and particles made from stardust and centuries before me. I am made of hope, acceptance, knowledge and ultimate love for myself and others. I am made of spontaneity and the daring risk to be who I am meant to be, I am infinite and you cannot bottle up stardust. You cannot contain me with your mere words.

Who are you to tell me who to be? Who am I to accept that? Who am I to let you tell me anything about my bones and brain, my mind and soul? Who am I?

You only wish you knew.