It came to me when I was telling my friend about the assignment we got for english for our final. Which was to write a peom about anything. It could be personal or fake. Serious, funny, long, short. And we had to recite it infront of the class.
I thought it was totally lame because I cant write poems. Or at least I didnt think I could. I wrote my peom from a rant I had.
I didnt want to say it outloud because it basically blasted my friend who I was seriously pissed at. So then my english teacher said that we had to get into groups and read it to our group members so we could get more comfertable.
I was about to join my guy freinds that sat in front of me because we were always grouped together on projects. But instead she picked our groups.
So I was in a group of people that I NEVER talked more than 4 words to. It was awkward to say the least. I was made the leader and we all said our peoms and gave each other comments.
So this is part of my eipiphany. I was labled an emo in 10th grade by my cousins and it hurt but I didnt care. It hurt when people at school would lable me other things.
Punker: I was wearing a Ramones Shirt.
Metelhead: Iron Maiden shirt
Emo: My Chemical Romance shirt.
I think the worst one was a couple of guys were speaking spanish and making comments about my wieght. Hello I'm mexican. I can speak spanish! I can understand you!
So I would lable back. ie:skater, prep, jock, gangster, cheerleader, Band geek, stoner, surfer, Bro, Anime nerd, scene.
So when the day came to perform our poems. Half of the class one day the next half the next day. The first day was pretty laid back. My crush went up and he was so nervous.
His peom was interesting. It was about life and death and how fire can be like death but its also life becase some plants cant grow with out it.
It came to the last person and it was one of the girls in my group. So when you first see her and sterotype her she looks like a stoner/gangbanger.
So she said the tittle of her peom but didnt say what it was about. She didnt have to. It explained its self. It was about her life and the things she went through and is going through.
Her dad dying, mom getting remarried, seeing friends go to jail and die for things they didnt do, mom getting cancer but still smoking, wanting to change her life but not being able to.
She started to cry in the middle of it and when she was done everyone was crying.
The next day was more emotional. One girl talked about how she feels pain whenever she see's the guy she loves and knows that he doesnt love her back,
Anouther talked about her mom that passed away.
The days that we spent saying our poems really opened up our eyes on how much we hide.
When I said my poem people where surprised that I could even be mad at someone. To them I'm always happy.
We learned that more then half of the class had been affected by death and gang violence.
Or that the cheerleaders like to play gear of wars.
The slackers are only that way because no one pushed them to succed.
To say the least I learned that everyone in that class became like family through out the year and we all understood each other as people and not sterotypes.
I thank my english teacher for opening our eyes and making us see were all the same.