It doesn’t take much to say that you are ugly,
That you are flawed,
A monster that no one can love.
It takes a little more to agree with people who disagree,
To just nod and follow,
Being herded around like sheep.
It takes a lot to stand up
For yourself
For your beliefs
For your sanity.
To shake off blind obedience
And become your own leader.
Sometimes, you just want to step out of your allotted space in the world
And discover who you are.
Not what the world wants you to become
Not what is expected of you
But who you are
And what you are made of.
Some people believe that there are no choices,
That our paths are chosen at birth.
Fine,
But I want my path to consist of
Detours and backtracking and double guessing and
Uncertainty and hope and pain and raw clarity
Because, otherwise
What am I going to experience on my
Pre-destined path?
I choose to be loud and soft,
Here and there,
Cocky and humble,
Beautiful and ugly,
Colorful and dull,
Real and fake,
Content and miserable,
In love and hating love,
And most of all
A contradiction,
a.k.a myself.
I don’t care so much as to how people perceive me, but
More so how I wish to be perceived.
I talked about how it takes something to stand up for yourself.
It’s not gumption or support from others or even worldly wisdom.
It’s knowing yourself so well that lying about what makes you you hurts.
This isn’t easy to find either.
This self-knowing comes
Sometimes through an epiphany,
Sometimes through a fortune being told.
But most of the time,
From asking the right questions
And finding the answers you needed.
Not necessarily the ones you went searching and longing for.
This self-knowing
Is unique to each of us,
A blend of traits that capture us.
I know this because, for the moment, I have caught myself
And love every inch of who I have become.