I'm different—
I get it.
I don’t speak the way you do,
I eat diversity for breakfast,
I don’t act like your mirror.

But I’m human.
Equally important.
Equally supreme.

Give it a rest—
I demand order.
I demand respect.
I should be treated as such.

I don’t wear inferiority
Like a badge I didn’t earn.
I won’t sit with minds
That think I’m beneath them—
When we all know
I’m the opposite.

You judge my roots
Like they shame me—
But they feed me.
They bloom strength
You’ve only ever tried to steal.

It’s a joke to you—
But my kind don’t spend their days
Belittling you.
They have positive change
They need to make
With their time.

To extricate myself from thoughts
That drown me—
Isn’t harm.
It’s healing.
It’s clear water.

Where I grow
Is not your prison of fear.
It’s the place
They wish they belonged—
Because I carry
What they could never hold.

It’s a tradition all over,
They did it—now I’m meant to fold,
To drink the same bitter brew they swallowed,
As if pain were heirloom gold.

It tasted like bitter leaf,
When they could have picked spinach instead.
Why choose the thorned path of grief,
When sweetness blooms just ahead?

They called it fate,
They called it duty,
But I call it what it truly is—
The burial of beauty.

I won’t conform to the old design,
Not every story ends in tears.
Nothing is impossible to redefine,
Not when courage outshines fears.

Their ideas creep like poison ivy,
Climbing fast, choking breath.
But I, I step aside—
I won’t go blind into that depth.

I deserve a candy cane,
Not another link in a chain.
I deserve love that doesn’t drain,
Not masked as honour, not soaked in pain.

So if they say I must kneel
In unions void of care and grace,
I will rise, steel in my heel,
With fire in my place.

Even if I must fight the skies,
The earth, the storm, the sea—
Let it be known—I won’t accept
What steals the soul of me.

I will not take any lees.
Only wholeness.
Only peace.

Look.
Observe.
Then choose:
Be the prey,
Or be the predator—
Whichever fits your skin today.

Smile, frown, laugh—
Only as deserved.
I don’t serve emotion
Where it hasn't been earned.

It's wise not to repeat history’s errs,
But it’s rare—
A soul bold enough
To seal itself
Or throw the dice
And feel anyway.

To be open—
Truly open—
Is a right well-earned.
To be open
Without deservation
Is a choice I sometimes make.

I juggle it all.
Dip my heart in waters,
Test each temperature,
To see which part of me fits this set.

When I’m open without a guard,
Consider it sacred—
A privilege.
Because understanding me?
That’s no basic math.

And when I take offense,
It means I see your redemption still.
Indifference?
Now that’s the true ****.

But the worst of it?
My zero.
The plastic smile,
The Barbie act,
Given graciously,
While I rot inside the wrap.

When I’m too agreeable,
When I grin too wide—
Trust,
It might just be
Distrust in disguise.

Because sometimes,
I gift you only
My poker face grace.