The crowd stares at me in disbelief, they're trying to tell me how to dress,
like the left wing says my jeans are too short, it's unaccustomed to them,
the solution is to loosen my comfort and enjoy the prospects
of being taken hostage by a system that assists in my demolition,
I'm not perfect, I'm not beautiful. They preach it through musicals,
that acoustical tune that says the world is watching every step,
so every breath is not my own to control, I'm holding a cane
that doesn't make me stand taller, doesn't make me stand bolder,
that says the older I get, the more of these I will have to buy.
So I look up to the sky wondering how in the world I got here
a beard, some faded jeans telling me what it means to be amazing,
amazing as defined by pop star icons is found in the way you dressed
not in the depth of your soul, not in the acceptance as a whole
but in the pressed on nails and roaming around with flesh on sale.

I do not live by the words of the left wing nor the right wing
I live within my own world where the words soothes my soul,
there's a hole in my chest but it isn't being filled with clothing
because closing a hole with materials is not as filling as it is.
I do not care how I dress, as long as my purpose is intact
I will not be trapped inside a system that assists in my demolition.

The people in the crowd looks to me, says your purpose-
is to sling curses at an old lady with a veteran husband
that the nation trusted, sling curses at an old lady
who lately struggles to sleep as she seeps into the bottle.
The people in the crowd looks to me, says your purpose
is to worsen the lives of those around me, that old lady
who as of lately suffers from arthritis, with shaking hands
tell her you plan to disrespect her because she is a wreckage
unworthy of salvaging so you're doing a hefty good deed.
The people in the crowd says it is all in the name of being cool,
shattering lives, taking knives from drawers
and drawing in people who self harm to help calm their bloods
with a slice of a blade, this mistake after the next,
a blade forgets the wrist but the people don't shut up.
They look at us, like we are their chopping boards
playing tic-tac-toe with an ink they can afford,
each hateful name is a checkered stain across a wrist
that has been kissed by mothers and stitched by doctors.

The people in the crowd says to me, how do you expect-
any respect dressed as a draped over curtain, for certain-
you are earthen for a purpose and that purpose is to show yourself;
dress like hell is awaiting and the heaven is sacred,
dress like a patriot but swear foul things towards your country,
do it for the money or don't do it at all.
The people in the crowd looks at me, up and down,
their face forms a frown like a rainbow made from hate,
a greyish drab sweeps over their face and they know
that I'm gone.

I taught hate towards myself where a pill in a bottle won't feed it
I've beaten myself to blue and pink where my instincts to be insync
with hatred is but a tempo in a song. I look to the crowd
and question are you proud? I've been alive, trying to minimise
the time I have left before I expire and in this light
I might just give fight to the wrong cause
because I'm lost. A pill in a bottle won't fix what's broken
I've soaked in the word of the crowd for so long
that I'm long gone.

I hope that I can stand tall, stand bolder,
grow older, grow wiser to love myself
and not need help on learning to love.