Do you honestly think anyone would choose to be different? To suffer the dangers involved with becoming something that nobody really understands, and thereby becoming something they fear? Is it true that we as people are hated by God, the one we grow to love and cherish, all because of whom we decide to spend our lives with. If given an option, I would have chosen to be normal, to be like all my friends, like everybody else. But its not that simple. Do you understand what its like to have most of the world, quite literally hate you? These people we consider our neighbors, suddenly turn to reveal that they hate us simply because they were raised that way. I was never brought up religiously. I went to church here and there. But I knew who god was. He was the man who I talked to when I felt alone, cursed when my grandmother died. But irregardless of how angry or sad I was, he was always there. Do you know what its like to find out that this person, who has been there all your life, hates you because of what he made you?

I refuse to believe that I am an accident, or that I am making a choice. Being gay is so much more than that. It’s being brave enough to stand up and say “I’m different. And I’m happy.” I wish I was that brave. Having been tormented all my life by homophobic slurs, I found it hard to trust even the people I love with such a burden. Because it is not something I would wish on anyone. And, on top of all of this, I am a boy. Men hide their emotions. They are brave and strong. Muscular and Tall. And While I am some of those things, why should it matter if I prefer to sing and dance rather than be tackled by a left tackle in football stadium. Society needs to stop defining me. Because I define myself. So from now on, I define me. I’m 16 years old. I live in New Jersey, I’m a singer and a painter, a reader and a writer. And I am a homosexual. But that is not all that I am. So why don’t we stop defining each other by how we are different, and start realizing how much we have in common. We bleed the same blood, we see the same sky. And we can coexists. Because deep down, we all want be known for who we truly are. And it’s time to start being that person. For everyone to start being that person.