This is to all those misfits

To the Romeo car-washing in Inglewood inlets
To the Hippy selling crystals on the Venice boardwalk
The Magician swallowing 8-***** at the Huntington Beach peer
The Rapper selling CDs in the Ranch Market parking lot
The **** tatting in a makeshift garage
The Poet slinging chapbooks at cafes and rec centers…


Not androids pontificating from lecterns
But grimy roots burrowing deep
Seismic rumblings toppling down
Insured ivory towers
Smashing pilled-paradigms beneath Docs
Hustling and slinging
In the forbidden outshacks of civilization
In tents, over barbed-wire, beside shards
Desperate and burning
For neither Truth or Beauty
But for LIFE

They do not tap wrists
No,  they thump chests
To feel it beat
To feel it rage
For fugitive fugues
For new eternities

They embrace
******* romance
Graveyard necromance
The holy hunger for change
Defying commercials and charts
Shivering and howling on streets
Waging guerrilla war
Liberating cubicled-hearts

I don't seem to fit in
"Be yourself" they said
So of course I rebelled.

I tried being the cool kid
Ahaha, what a laugh that was
Try being confident after years of being nervous?
Yeah, it was a bit of a wreck

I tried being silent
But I would always speak out of turn...
It takes great sadness to shut me up
It seems..

I tried being tough
Despite my height,
Nobody believes you if you ain't packing a six-pack

I tried to isolate myself
But my soul longed for company
So much that it began to even annoy me

So eventually I tried being myself
I have lots of "friends", people who only care about my losses but never share my wins.
Some close friends.... at times it feels as though they don't exist
It seems to me that being a "creep", "******" and "stalker"....
Well, they seem to be who I am.
Don't mind me sobbing in the corner

I'm just being myself

i am trapped in a body that is not mine

they say: what do you mean
they say: this body is yours

forgive me, for i do not know how to explain

how do you tell someone that there is a child inside your ribs
how do you tell someone that there are scars under your skin but you do not know where they came from
or how the morning sun hits your eyelids but you cannot see the light

i try to explain
and i say:
i was touched and claimed before i knew what it was to be claimed
i was his before i was mine
i was yours before i knew what that meant
i was public property before i learnt that humans are allowed to be private

i say:
there is a bird trapped in my throat and it chirps
there is a snake in my esophagus that is trying to escape
there is an elephant on my heart that longs for home
there is a burn on my arm from a forest fire, but i'm not quite sure how that happened
or which forest i was in
or who took me there
or when

i say:
he wolf-whistled me
or maybe i eve-teased him
or maybe he should have just ******* left me alone because i didn't ******* know what those words meant because i was ******* 5 years old

i say:
my ***** broke before i knew what a ***** was

i say:
my mother told me i was a woman and i cried

i say:
there is an itch in my mind that makes me want to pull out my hair

i say:
i am inside
this body
it is not mine
i am inside
this body

**it
is
not
mine.

The dreams I dream lay far away
I dream of them not night but day
They all would say
It’s child’s play
She’ll let it go someday

They would say it was not wise
Whilst avoiding my cerulean eyes
Lo, the stage it gave me butterflies
So from their naysaying I would abscise

Still their words I could not forget
So deep down I buried it
My being and self they split
I walked around a counterfeit
My misfit turned to hypocrite
I knew then I needed to recommit

This spirit will prevail
On a red carpet I will sail
All hindrances will be scaled
I will not fail
This is more than a fairytail
My dream and I, we are *dovetail

This is for the ones who suffer..
We all suffer..
I guess what I'm tryna say is..
This for all of us,
Here we go!

He gets up, another day,
Another laid to waste
Procrastination is the game
Doesn't know the word haste

He looks around, the sights he sees makes him so upset
He's just hoping that someday, he might forget
So that he can rest peacefully, for he never rests easily
When he gets shoved around, smacked down, so unequally treated

Hated for the way he walks, the way he looks, his voice
If it was all left to him, if he had a choice
He'd change it all, because he can't change the world
Something he's discovered, no matter how he yelled

People don't change, they can only adapt
Adaptation across the nation or else get bashed
Fragile and broken lay the pieces of him
So with renewed energy, unleashed the demon within

Now he's angry, upset because he knows the truth
Even though technically he's just a youth
A world that has ****** him since his birth
Now he's cracking down on others making them eat dirt

And taste the bitterness and the blood in their mouth
Words don't do anything, his only option this route
Regrettable as it seems, it's the only way
That he can go to sleep at the end of the day

We suffer at the hands of those who suffered
Suffering on repeat, no opportunity offered
We take offence, take the hits and dish them out ourselves
No us, we or team, just Me and Myself

She feels down, feels stressed but she figures it's just school
However, not the case, treated like a fool
Tossed around, used up, like a rusty tool
Breaking down inside, but the façade must rule

Never show emotion, because it will break you down
Pain makes others laugh so crazy, like a circus clown
Insane in the membrane, but pain's the game
If you don't try to change it, it'll stay the same

She wants to be successful, and get a job
But it's hard when you can't focus, she's feeling robbed
Opportunity passes by, cruising like a ship
But bullies anchor her down, she can't deal with it

So she turns to the mirror, and asks herself, "Why?"
"I wanna be myself but whenever I try...."
She can't finish the sentence, the blade didn't miss
How's she gonna tell her Mum her wrists are slit?

Angry red lines like the rage inside
Finally she let it out and it made her cry
Cruelty to misfits in a world like this
The pain overwhelms her, and a tear does slip

Splashes on the floor, a diamond speck
Thinking she is so ugly, another reject
Across the street, on his feet, he thinks he suffers alone
Head down, small frown, puzzled he doesn't know

Their situations are similar though not alike
He cuts himself too, sometimes, when he feels so like
The demon within, they both got demons to face
But either way, they still suffer, no matter how hard you pray

We suffer at the hands of those who suffered
Suffering on repeat, no opportunity offered
We take offence, take the hits and dish them out ourselves
No us, we or team, just Me and Myself

We suffer..
We suffer..
Procrastination across the faces and pains the game
If you don't try to change, it'll stay the same

We suffer...
We suffer....
They look in the mirror and question life
Later realise they can reach the sky

We suffer

I still have your single black sock-
It is a reminder that I am not the only one who
lost something
when you left:
misfit parts of you are still sprinkled across my bedroom
(it is a lesson for the both of us)
what else am I to do?

Misfit, misshapen, misplaced
Not fitting in anywhere
I'm a pariah, a loner, a coyote
Stalking the fringes of society
Never seen, never heard, never felt
Only dreamed, and imagined, and feared

If only I had a place to be
A person to see
Maybe
Maybe
I'll see brighter days ahead
And love like a dove

I am alone because I am unique
I am myself, alone, nobody else
A drop in an ocean of faces
Yet an ocean in a world of drops
Always okay, always broken
Never whole, never fractured
A contradiction of opposites
A unity of abnormality

Dishes clanking fires burning
Hurry round no time to chat
people hungry people yearning
But not enough to make them fat

Everything must be just right
Not too little not too much
Gonna be a real long night
With fires on too hot to touch

No one listens but they're talking
Guessing I don't notice this
Keep on working keep on walking
On tempting food they can't resist

So much lost here in translation
Regardless of the price it cost
Focused on just get it done
Amidst the noise all value lost
At one time this seemed for fun
Now look out for number one

Whip the cream and peel potatoes
No time to sit in idling gear
What real worth nobody knows
When losing job is what you fear

People standing at the door
Never break from start to stop
Feels like they are keeping score
Keep head down let's go -chop chop
Feels like you can't take no more

Duties call do things you must
Try real hard to not get burned
In better things we hope and trust
Know things are left that we must learn