i hope my words are strange and wondrous,

like kisses that quiet all things superfluous,

so that we can all stop and

listen

i came to be extremely dissatisfied with a huge part of who i am.

i've always been dissatisfied,

always wished myself more of this, more of that.

a tough wall to throw myself against.

i needed it.

i still do.

however,

as i made my way through a graphic novel today by Charles Burns, called Black Hole,

a book with multiple erotic, graphic images,

of sex, of drugs, of murder, death and horrific imagery.

i've come to realize, i need my tough shell.

hearing jibes for a while on my bro-ness, my masculine-at-times sense of humor, my liberal vocabulary and other such things,

hurt.

this isn't who i am.

but it is.

my faith in the greater things in life, the more beautiful,

the fanciful, the sweet things.

buried.

can nobody see me?

a silent screaming through layers of hardening,

this is not who i wanted to be,

but this is who i must be.

i dare you,

to come walk with me,

and see if you turn out better.

i'll stand in hard defiance of your judgment,

and in hard defiance of complete compromise.

i admit,

that struggling to find the balance is key,

but to the blind fools who can't see beyond,

i run from.

away.

no longer naive its true.

but there is beauty still...

i know its there.

a secret garden locked away,

walled high from the strangling vines

of what this world deems to be the real things.

and no one to entrust with the key,

except for me.

the loneliest job on the planet.

guardian of my heart.