You wield that word like a sabre,
As if to preclude my words and humanity,
To write me out,
And yes it is true,
I don’t exactly fit any puzzle,
Always out of step in conversations,
Odd socks and baggy shirts,
Socially awkward in the extreme,
But what of it?
A tiger can’t change his stripes,
This moniker you have bestowed upon me,
Freak,
Oddity,
Weirdo,
Loser,
It is a badge of honour,
I am proud of the war I waged to earn it,
I am strange,
And I’ll die on that hill,
With a weird grin on my face.
There is indeed magic in this world,
Not of mana and incantations,
But the realm of nature,
Not of glyphs and sorcery,
But of our verdant mother,
The spells she wields,
Those helixes of code,
They are in perpetual flux,
Building blocks on an atomic scale,
Altered slightly in every iteration,
The marvels she summons are indeed magical,
Species and races and every tint of the rainbow,
Our mutations are the gifts she enchants us with,
Our differences are the witchcraft in our human coven,
In the magic of our DNA.
I pulled that cellophane over my head,
Covering my mouth and ears promised clarity,
A carrier bag emergency exit,
A suicidal aegis,
To drown out the voices,
Those noises of normal society,
To nullify their edges,
Their droll criticisms,
And as each breath was stolen in plastic,
As the clear veil grew foggy,
It was as if a great weight had dissipated,
Like oxygen leaving blue lips,
Normality could scold me no longer.
One day I grimaced at my hands,
And I saw that they were not truly mine,
Bound to schemes not my own,
Tied to some parliamentary puppeteer,
Oligarchs bluffing authority,
So I took a rotary saw to them,
With each rotating bite,
Every vein separated,
Muscle torn from radius,
Each bone bloodily gnawed through,
I felt no fire from the excision,
I felt relief,
Self-mutilation rapture,
The roar of petrol chokes any vice,
No longer can these hands commit the evils of others,
I’m no longer a tool,
If I cannot touch,
I cannot harm.
Like our frames of flesh,
Our souls can sustain dents and cracks,
Harmed by barbed situations and jagged tongues,
Our essence bleeds out of these wounds,
Manifesting as turmoil and angst,
Our internal peace shattered into fragments,
Like flesh they can be knitted anew,
Our nirvana of vitality restored,
But the tools are very much different,
It is not the demesne of the mechanic to fix,
The workshop lies in our own minds,
Meditation and self-love are the utensils at hand,
It takes perseverance,
Listening for the hurts of our spirits,
Taking needle and blowtorch to each wound,
Incense and peace and shadow work,
It’s an ongoing inward pilgrimage,
To get back to ourselves.
There is a weight upon my spine,
I don’t recognise it,
A small body holding twin instruments,
It feels primate in nature,
A simian struggle exists on my shoulders,
A quaint fez and maroon waistcoat,
The beats of its being ring true,
I recognise every clang,
They scream in my ears,
Every hateful fact I have embodied,
Each fault resounded in shrill tones,
Every tone of my inadequacy,
Nobody deserves this fate,
Not even this ghoul,
Profound cymbals against my temples,
Trowels glancing off block,
So in rage I hope you’ll endorse me,
F@#!?!K that monkey!
I am not a glamourous man,
Not a Prince Charming,
More of a Grendel or Hyde,
Something akin to a blobfish in a shirt,
A weirdo,
An eccentric enemy of the state,
But when I place that crown upon my head,
That mad hatter headpiece,
Victorian fashion supreme,
I don’t care anymore,
I know that I’m finally me,
I’ll be able to grin,
With it comes the face paint,
A clown taking shape under its rim,
Madness coalescing with joy,
With this ensemble I can recover from normality,
But I fear it’d all be for naught,
If not for my top hat.
I can’t keep that beeping out of my head,
That incessant crying,
The trilling of the heartbeat monitor,
Forced on when my heart was trod on,
Decibels striking my thoughts with scourges,
A result of things gone wrong,
That flatline,
Blades across eardrums,
But the bleeding has ceased,
Flesh is replaced with stone,
A warm soul is now calcified,
Heartache has given rise to blizzards,
I shed my person suit,
This is the demise of that former quintessence,
This war has made me cold,
Now it’s every man for himself,
Now let me embrace some chaos,
Now I embrace that beep.
Some of us escape society,
Canines of every shade and shape,
Runaway hounds and beasts,
Shredding our way out of vanilla cages,
Longing to run with more wild packs,
Individuals with no collars,
We’re bad dogs,
Authority wants us on a leash,
Normality reaches out with nets,
But we tore off those fingers,
And ran free,
Slavering and howling,
Daily life becoming wildlife,
Dodging slings and dog whistles,
Animal control in public form,
We follow sweet scents of unrestraint,
Tonight we are not docile pets,
But wolves on the run.
Take a seat over there.
So I hear you have a case of being yourself?
You’re an individual?
Easily remedied!
Here take these,
Two pills of forced homogenization,
And another of a misguided vox populi.
Take with regular exercise and regular bullying.
Keep your mind grey and dull.
You’ll be cured and normal in no time!
Don’t listen to that doctor!
Me? I’m your voice of reason.
Individuality is not a disease,
It’s not a curse,
It’s not wrong!
It’s good to stand out!
It’s good to be yourself!
Wear what you want!
Do what makes you happy!
Love who you want!
Let your rainbows soar!
And if you are faced by bigots and critics,
Just remember: Don’t let them “cure” you.
You’re an individual!
WorldofHarley 