Outside these walls, I’m a criminal. Talking to me is unchaining some kind of monster, an arsonist. I feel like people see me, and they think I’m sitting there on a guardrail over the Brooklyn Bridge, tossing a matchbook in my hand, James Dean style. And I’m just waiting for you to talk to me so I can rub my 5-o-clock shadow on your cheek, seduce you with a little impassioned belief and then light your ass on fire and throw your screaming corpse over the side. I don’t know when having sounds in your mouth that form sound beliefs that you want to share, suddenly made you socially inept at best, at worst a sociopath. Don’t fear me ’cause I’m a rebel with an actual fucking cause. Shout your fucking opinions. Have a little goddamn passion for breakfast. I’m not a devil, and my mind is anything but devil-may-care; but if I’m talking to you it’s because I care. I care about you, about what you say. Penalizing me for that makes you a pathetic piece of lung tissue that can push out enough air to hurt me, to bring me back in line begging for amnesty.

And you want me to sing these ‘Hymnals’. To say sorry for having a mind and assuming you did too. And if I want to break out of these ostracizing walls, I’ve got to sing, ‘oh, mercy me, mercy me. I’m sorry for existing’. Except, I won’t. I grew up in a world without opinions and I almost suffocated from the silence, from the way I was silenced. If life for you and your vision for me is a world of so-so conversations completed by smiles and a sum total of zero disagreement—excuse me, I’m going to sprint to that bridge to light myself on fire and wander over the edge.

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