When I was little

I took it upon myself and all my three year old artistic abilities

To draw a map of the world on my bored of a dresser

 

Yet in my childish ignorance

I had only drawn

The state of Oklahoma in a circle that I called the earth

Quite out of proportion I might add

It was that frying pan state taking up the entire planet

 

But breathing easy got hard when

Geography classes were the catalyst

Drawing out all the ineffable places

So far out of my reach

 

So being stuck in the Sooner State

We played on gravel roads out in the middle of nowhere

And lived by nothing more than our imagination

There was no peace

There was no war

No hate crimes

No acts of kindness

No hopes and dreams for the future

No broken promises or heartache

Just us kids in a little town too dumb

Too young for our own good

 

Then our coming of age proved humanity of its underlying guilt

And having my luck

I was the one to become the aberrant adolescent

The quarter-short customer paying too many charities

I was the one to take on the role of the easiest thing to hate

In a small town with smaller minds

 

Turns out

All my mental fixations were

Swear words in right winged America

Pushing me to

Tear away everything that made me into my own person

All I wanted was acceptance

 

Now reflecting on this with

Brand new eyes from all the

Loneliness and self support

I guess I hadn't realized that the world is mad up of

7 billion stories

All intertwining together and exploring every facet of humanity

And that life didn't stop at

City limits, county lines, state borders

The world is not one

Giant small town Oklahoma like my childlike eyes had perceived it to be

 

They tried to

Implant their mild-mannered development

Into a skull laced with graffiti covered steel

Asking "What will the people think?"

"What happened to my sweet baby boy?"

 

But hey

 

I am not your Stepford-like son

I am a free thinker

I am a homosexual

A feminist with a--

A larger than life dreamer

A Slytherin sometimes Gryffindor

An under appreciated straight A student

I am America's obesity epidemic in a skinny body

I'm loving Ariana Grande, Pierce the Veil, and Vivaldi

One of the teenage dirtbags

I'm the analytical Virgo

The drama geek

The poetry nerd

Not the least bit interested in sports

I am my own spirit animal

 

I'm different

From the fact that I spell theatre with an R-E

Instead of an E-R

To being able to twist my arm all the way around

Don't ask me how I figured that one out

I'm peculiar, yes

 

I am all of these things

And none of these things at the same time

And for that, they send their negative vibes my way

 

Well spoiler alert guys

Everyone laughs

Everyones pokes their bruises

Everyone pours their unrequited love into something

Everyone falls flat on their face and bleeds out

Everyone dreams of happier days

 

And even though

You can find

All the ways

That make us polar opposites

We are really not that different at all