So my words will never burn.

I've been told I spend too much time trying to not act the part. I have been told I put more effort into making sure I am not a stereotype that I don't have enough left over to become someone. I make sense of it in hours and minutes. I make my odds with chance and fate. And people ask me how I have it so figured out. They can't see that I don't.

Some people get caught up in trying to fit in. I think I have gotten caught up in going against the grain, in securing the fact that I am not those people as so desire not to be. To be true to myself. But it's hard when you spend so much time focusing on what not to be that you forget to be yourself. Maybe the time might be better spent figuring out who I am instead of who I am not.

I often wonder what people's impressions of me are from across a room. I wonder if they mistake my shyness and timid glances for something else. Yes, it's true that I do not like parties filled with people I do not know from strangers. It doesn't mean that I am not open to conversation. I am just not much for small talk. I joke. I laugh, maybe too much and over things that people do not find funny. But I don't care for the fluff. I want to know you, not your technique.

Maybe there isn't any impressions. Maybe I just don't make impressions. I am just a glance over, overlooked and counted out. I deserve it though. I often I am labeling and judging inside my mind and bones. It's sad. It's not right. It's true. In ways, I am no better than the self righteous artist or the beautiful people. I go around judging to justify my own insecurities. It's pathetic. How much I limit my vision due to fear of myself and others. I am more blind than I like to admit or give credit for.

Yet, I still buy into it. I say I don't believe in it but I have bought into it. Apathy is the name of the game. I go around proclaiming the scam that it is and how I don't care for it. You would think if I didn't care I could just leave it alone. I just lie to save face. It really does bother me. I feel like I am being denied my fair chance to show who I really am. The whole system is working against me and limiting me and not letting me thrive. That all I have to offer is being written off as replaceable and mundane. I don't blame them for doing so, but it's all I really have to offer. Maybe I don't posses the intangibles, whatever they decide those are.

Yet, I still fake the apathy. I care though and the insecurities are there. Over the superficial things that we are told not to worry about. About if I wear the right clothes, if I am skinny or fit enough to be around certain types of people. If I am something they want. Yes, some things will always be there in the back of my mind, even if I tell you they are not. I just act like I don't care so I don't show my secrets on my face.

And maybe I will spend more time figuring out who I am rather than who I am not. And then I won't need any approval but my own.

These are mid night thoughts.

3 A.M. ,

Little Lion Man