I’ve heard it far too many times. “Punks are everywhere! Where is this world going when it’s so acceptable to be a freak?!” Acceptable? Right. So can you explain to me why I have to take out my labret, plug it with wax, and cover it up with makeup before I can ever hope to get a decent job?

I face prejudice for my chosen way to look and live and I know tolerance isn’t going to come any time soon, especially not here in the conservative South. I have a few things to say. I’ve had a lot of experience with you. You look me over, you see my strong face, my coppery hair, my wide blue eyes, my creamy skin with a flush of peach in the cheeks.

Your eyes move down my slender body. 33-24-33, not far from the ideal measurements, long legs, shapely calves, narrow waist, not a single ounce of spare fat on my body. And you tell me “You’re so gorgeous. If you didn’t look like such a freak you could be a model, you know that?”

Yes, I know this. You see your “perfect” models on television with their anorexia and boob jobs, with their fake tans and false lashes. They’re “clean”: no face metal, no ink. Mutilation, you call it. You don’t understand that we call it art, and you won’t understand and that’s okay so long as you treat us like we’re normal human beings. But you don’t, and that’s why it’s not okay.

You don’t like us because we’re different. You don’t understand us. We don’t look like your pretty little models and therefore we can’t be “right”. You think that because these living plastic dolls are what’s on television you have the right to judge us. And I understand, because if you don’t know a person then appearance is the first thing you judge them by.

But we’re not judged as “creative”, or “rock music fans”, or even just “okay” and that is why I have a problem with you. I know a lot of you look at us and think we’re on drugs. We drink. We are promiscuous, lazy, stupid. We’re not leaders. We hate you, we hate everything, f*k the world. We’re death, doom, darkness.

We’re insane, hateful, we challenge your idea of things as you know them or maybe you don’t even get that far. You write us off before you think. We don’t do that to you. What’s wrong with piercings or tattoos? The majority doesn’t have a labret? Why do you make me hide this thing in my face no different from the things in your ears?

Why do you make me get my tattoos in places you’ll never see, in places I can easily hide these beautiful images and works of art? Why wouldn’t I make a good employee? Why can’t I be smart? I have to be better than you because you don’t see me as a person. I’m a freakshow to you, and I have to be better so you can see me as something different.

I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t have sex. I’m smart, I’m attending the best college in my state, in fact, I’m a gifted writer and a loving friend. I work hard and don’t complain about what I’m asked to do. I am respectful, helpful, and polite. But none of that matters to you because I have a piece of metal through my lip. So I must be rude. I must be a junkie. I must be hateful.

Why would I look like this? What logical reason is there for me to find a cross, a flower, a lyric inked into my skin beautiful? I have to be better than you for you to consider me as human, for you to be able to overcome your prejudice for just a second. I’m not an example of the fall of society.

If I were, you wouldn’t make me hide my body art to work in your institutions and serve your (and my) public. I know you won’t see us as any different after reading this, but I hope it made you think of us differently for just one second.