Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 09:41:54 -0500 (EST)
>From: Justin <ERVINJ@steffi.uncg.edu>

I walk down the halls of my dorm floor.
Jeremy has his door open, the posters of naked women,
Torn from a magazine, are in full view
Taped to the wall.

A little farther down, on a door's placard,
Someone has written "likes boys," jokingly,
Beside the name of a room resident
As if that was something to laugh about.

Above the urinal in the bathroom is a
Sign up sheet for the dinner exchange
With our "sister floor," a program designed
To help us men "socialize" with the dorm women.

When I was a young child, going to the Catholic school
I was enrolled in (because your religion is chosen by your parents) I was
told that it wasn't wrong to be gay, but what was wrong Was to act gay.  I
must live a straight "lifestyle."

-Don't speak up about your feelings
-Take a nice girl to the prom
-Get married, if you can stomach it
 (It's the only way you'll be allowed a family)
_Above all, Act Straight!!!
 (We don't want to face the issue that you represent)

And my parents and my friends and my doctors and and and I Wondered why I
was so depressed as an adolescent
I sucked down the pills my friends and my doctors gave me to alter my mind
Because each told me it would make me feel better, I'd worry less.

(What's the difference?
 I still don't know
 "We don't like your mind the way it is.  It makes us uncomfortable.   But
here, take this and you can be more like us."

Above all, I was told if I ever wanted to be happy, I had to be myself. Be
myself?  But I thought...
No, I have never been myself; I have never been allowed to. So I changed my
attitude.  They taught me the only way to survive was to hate (the way they
did)

No one ever asked what I wanted.  I was patched with this label, this
All-American Bar Code from the day I was born, and told about football And
cars and sex and a womans place and who I was supposed to be And no one
ever tried to find out who I really was.  They couldn't face it

So I say to you brother, friend, mother, senator, pastor, all of you, I do
want to be me.  But first I must be allowed.
I want I want I want I need I cry I feel I must be allowed to love I want to
climb
To the peak of the campus clock tower, up with the other gargoyles,  Frozen
with the visage that society has given,
And I want to break from my mold and shout
"I am a FAGGOT!"

(And I want nobody to listen)
(And I want nobody to care)
And then I will be me.
------
This has been a public disservice announcement.