We create our own victims to triumphantly kill. 

I don’t believe in age, I believe in amount of experience. Just being alive does not mean you’re amassing experience. Years don’t matter. Experience does.

Goodnight. 

Guess what! Punk’s not a party theme. It’s a way of life.

Oh. No… I’m just seeing that they made a Pinterest board called ‘Punk Done Well.’ What, like a steak? I’d actually like my punk done medium rare, please. With a side of blood.

If you’re punk, the outside of you comes from within. You don’t need to reference a Pinterest board, and you’re probably not spending too much time making them, either.

You can’t just dress up in someone else’s identity and call it a costume. No, I am not forgetting about all of the white people in sarapes on cinco de mayo. I don’t partake, but I don’t care, either. Name one Mexican you know who actually wears a sarape? Maybe that’s the problem… No one at the Met knows any actual punks.

There’s just nothing more embarrassing than someone trying too hard to be something, and the Met doing punk? I’m surprised the building’s walls didn’t blush.

Maybe they’ll do football players next year? Or manicurists? Or doctors!?Yeah, doctors! That’d be fun! You could make the place cards out of doctors masks! And the stirrers could be tongue depressors! Free flu shots if you arrive before 9!

I can see it now.

Fuck tha Met

Finals deserve a surgeon general’s warning. There can’t be anything worse for your health.

It helps to surround yourself with good people, but you must be able to rise above the masses when you can’t pick your team.

While good people pull you up, you can’t let bad people push you down.

Conditions won’t always be positioned in your favor.

I just went to the Starbucks on my college campus.

The barista, an old, country, black man, commented on the engorged price of the cup of fruit that I was buying. $3.99 for four strawberries and eight blackberries with a kiwi thrown on top. Looked pretty worth it to me. Compared to the sad looking yet equally expensive cup of melon, I thought my choice was as exotic as a trip to St. Lucia.

“You don’t look nothin’ like you need to be countin’ calories, girl! Why don’t you get a muffin. They’re cheaper and taste a hell of a lot better than fruit!” the man said.

I looked at him incredulously and replied, “Since I’d pay 10 bucks not to eat that muffin, I think I’ll stick with the fruit for 4. See? I make the right choices and that’s why I look like I don’t need to count calories.”

He smiled. “It’s all about the choices you make, ain’t it?” A semi-enlightened glow had formed around the man’s face, letting me know that he was quite pleased with the level of emotional maturity he had attained.

At this point, admittedly, he had me impressed. I explained to him that I had just realized the same thing a little bit ago while driving: it really is all about the choices you make. There’s no way around it. The big ones, the small ones, they all add up.

Trust had mounted between the two of us as our conversation progressed, inspiring the man to lean over the counter toward me, confession-style.

“Man, you know? I got this girl. She got these gay friends, right? She be wantin’ me to hang out with them, and I’m just [covers his face], I’m just not goin’ to! Now don’t get me wrong, I ain’t got nothin’ against ‘em*, it’s their choice, though, you know? They choose to be that way and I choose to stay the hell away from ‘em!”

My jaw was nowhere to be found on my face. I looked down and saw that it had made its way to the floor. Unfazed by my new disfigurement, the man continued: “My girl try to tell me it’s- what’s it called- hereditary? Naw, gen-e-gen-e-genetic! Yeah, genetic. But I don’t believe any ‘a dat bull crap. Are you a Bible person?”

“No.”

“To each their own, to each their own. I just don’t see how what they do ain’t a choice! I coulda chose to be that way, but I di’nt! And I grew up with eight sisters, a mom, and no dad. Believe me, I coulda gone that way. But I did not want to choose it, simple as dat.”

I could feel the switch occur in my eyes, the one that transforms them from human to animal, betraying my emotions but strengthening my argument. The fire engulfing my face felt like it had reached my scalp, filling my nose with the scent of burnt hair. And my hands? My hands were shaking so conspicuously that, at that moment, I could have easily qualified for handicapped parking.

Finally, I managed to cultivate enough saliva to swallow the shock that had lodged itself within my mouth, debilitating the orifice’s purpose as could only a wad of cotton balls. After returning my runaway jaw to its resting place, I responded, ”Being gay is genetic and if you don’t understand that, you have some serious research to do.”

The man looked at me, taken aback. With views as dated as his (see the Jurassic Era), I’m sure that my little display of confidence had caused for him quite the alarm. Note: I am a woman.

Simultaneously encouraged and outraged by the refusal of the man’s face to register even a shred of understanding, I continued: “Do you really think they choose that life? All of the insane crap they have to deal with? The ridicule? The hate crimes? The risk of losing their families, or getting kicked out of their homes? Do you really think they choose to be regarded as lesser people? To be denied opportunities, like jobs, or marriage, just because of who they are?”

Crickets.

“I really don’t think anyone would agree to any of that treatment just to stick something up a butt.”

“You really think gay is genetic?”

“I don’t think it, I know it. I’m sorry. I’m a human rights minor and LGBTQ is my biggest cause.”

And on that note, I left, toting my hate-filled latte, while tears filled my eyes, taking me by surprise. I had no idea I cared that much.

Homosexuality is not something that anyone “chooses,” but participating in the fight for the equal distribution of human rights is.

Choose to fight for human rights. For yourself, for your friends, for everyone.

*”I don’t have anything against them” is a phrase most commonly used to prefix an admission of prejudice. It is your first hint that the speaker does, in fact, have something against “them.”