I spent my boyhood avoiding
      the disgrace of my differences.
Creating alternate empires that
      I ruled with stoic passion.
I gave out negative vibrations, as a boy,
      to control the level of association.
Built walls and lived within them,
       perfectly encased in sarcastic wisdom.
Does not take too long to understand
       that being yourself is not suggested.
Eager advocates educate the boy that his
      differences must be suppressed.
Be the same. Be the same. Be the same.
      Moulded and conformed, unaware
of the boyhood desiring to think for self.
       I spent my boyhood reading books
that opened libraries of imagination.
      Absorbing the solitary creations
of so many magnificent lives. They presented
      me with echoes of alternatives.
I never have understood the slicked back
      membrane of uncentred filters.
Solitary self-confinement made so
       much more tickled sense to me.
I passed out scented cigars of me
       to ear-drums inclined to not listen.
They agreed to, and supported,
       the numbness of not thinking.
Letting the self-declared prophets
       dictate how we must believe.
I spent my boyhood being the boy
      that did not fit the paper model.
Set it on fire. Set it on fire. Let the
       message always be that a man
must indicate his own set of standards.

.
In whisper— shadow sings a song.
My call is joined within the hollows,
Only tiny dimpled crests of the sea,
My voice, for rains, round familiar                                                       As patch into tune of old shattering
Light.  I search for love, sloe in slips
Thru ******* eyes, outcast beyond
And ghostly move into monumental
Futilities of unbearing, leery in flesh
Undeciphered.  Make me one lattice
To bind the wind and mark shallows
Mine as I trudge into black, blue sun.
This song— I sing is for lost keeping,
Hear my hush as it breaks for darks—
And I shall love in box, buried, forgot,
Kept at one sight so grave, remaining
As smudge onto stone burnt in a dial
Etched by firing rays of timeless star,
Hear my song— whispers of shadow.

It took me years
to fall in love with myself.
It was a foreign idea
throughout my childhood.
I remember the jealousy I felt
for the girls with flawless skin,
and perfectly straight hair.
I thought they were beautiful,
and they were,
but not in the most natural way.
I wanted to be the girl
who was beautiful
after rolling out of bed at noon
without any makeup
besides the mascara
from the night before.
I wanted to be the girl
who was effortlessly beautiful
without giving it a second thought.
I always admired those girls.
I loved the security
that radiated off them,
like the shimmer of sunshine
on delicately tan skin.
It took me years
to become one of those girls.
It was a slow process.
It took the shedding
of a society built for
flawless makeup ridden
artificially created beauty.
It took acceptance
for who I am without the mask.
It took forgiveness
for the flaws I was blessed with at birth.
It took years,
but I'm finally there.
I'm one of those
naturally beautiful girls.
I'm one of those girls
that could careless about shaving,
or washing their hair.
I'm a girl without cares.
I'm a girl in love with herself.

I told them to disguise it.

Hide hope in despair,
Wealth in poverty
And beauty in hidiousness.

I told them to stash it away.

Sneak love into a hateful heart,
Oppotunity into the pocket of failure
And tuck intelligence under a fools tounge.

Cover it up
So those who are willing
To lose it all,
Have it all.

My children,
Take the chances that come from losing,
Gnaw on the bones of poverty,
crack them open
And **** on the marrow of a full heart.

Go confidently into the world,
Knowing the value of an ugly old coat.
The warmth and memories it carries
Wrap yourselves up in dreams past,
And realize the brightness of your future.

I told them to disguise it,
Now go find it.