For People of Difference

Brothers, sisters
of difference,
people of color,
people of poverty,
gay and straight,
black, white, Asian, Hispanic,
jew, Christian, Muslim,
or whoever you are,
hitherto invisible ones,
stand together and
affirm yourselves,
in your difference,
and in your unity.
Do not accept for
one more minute
the insidious forces
that hold you back
by act, word, or tone.
Forge a chain and
break the chains,
you do not stand alone.
And to you beyond the walls,
in mental hospitals,
in prison stalls,
in chairs of steel,
in hospice beds,
in boxes made of cardboard,
or numbered by substances that
eat away at brain and heart,
for you who bear the stigma
of difference
and the judments of all,
join together, make it start!
Do not go silently;
do not withdraw;
do not say "yes sir"
even once more.
Trust what you think
and what you know and feel.
Cry, shout, scream,
find your anger,
dare to dream,
find your strength locked
arm in arm.
Do not go gently or in shame.
You have a legacy of hope,
of courage more than pain.

- Judith A. Lee