Cut me open, sink inside my body, search my bones, my brain, my heart.
Rip me apart. Did you find what you were looking for or am I the same as you?
Slit my throat and stab me, let my blood and the blood of everyone like me stain the history books-- except I’m the same as you.
Gun us down by the masses so we are no longer names, but numbers: 49 dead and 53 wounded.
Can I use the bathroom? Or will you beat me up in there too. Because there were too many cops in the street
except I can’t walk down that either in a world where we can’t walk or dance, hold hands or breathe without fear of getting shot.
So, where do I go when my closet is too full to stay in? Filled with skeletons of my people.
Should I rip off my flesh and become one with the rest of them-- your children, your neighbors, your friends? Would you notice the difference?
Mason Finamore of the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School wrote to the editors, explaining, "I'm sick of seeing the validity of my basic human rights being debated."