I gave you another reason to hate me.

A rebuttal stayed in my mouth like a coin I couldn’t swallow.

Even though I’m accustomed to the taste it doesn’t mean I like it.

It’s flavor minted somewhere between rumor and memory.

When my eyes are closed I can feel the ridges of disappointment.

I can trace the profile of a version of me that didn’t survive.

Strange.

I am the villain in stories I don’t remember being in the room for.

What a way to learn that charisma is not only a passport but a spotlight.

Do not expect applause when the beam finds you.

I think it’s too bright.

I’m too much.

I’m too bright.

Too certain of my own reflection in windows that weren’t built for me.

No one sees the nights I folded myself smaller and smaller or the way I rehearse apologies when apologies have lost their worth or the way I practice silence until it bruises.

I learned too young how to shape-shift for safety, how to make my laughter palatable, how to dim my joy so it wouldn’t look like arrogance under fluorescent lights.

Somehow I still arrive as thunder.

What is the acceptable volume for a man trying to survive himself?

I have tried whispering.

I have tried shrinking.

I have tried becoming air.

Useful, invisible, taken for granted.

Maybe you hate me because I remind you of something unfinished.

A mirror you didn’t consent to.

A courage you postponed.

Maybe my freedom looks like accusation from where you’re standing.

Or maybe simpler than poetry we just never learned how to hold each other’s difference without drawing blood.

“I gave you another reason to hate me.”

I turn it over in my hands now, less weapon, more artifact.

Proof that I lived loud enough to be misunderstood.

And if that is my crime to be felt before explained, to be seen before softened then let the record show:

I did not come here to be agreed with.

I came here to be whole.