The Beautiful Strange

They called me strange,

like it was a wound to hide, like my angles should be sanded into something smooth, something safe, something ordinary.

But I was never ordinary.

I spoke in colors that did not exist yet,

danced to music no one else could hear,

laughed at the shadows because I saw how they, too, were only light in disguise.

Yes, it is lonely, to sit at the edge of the circle,

to watch the world clap in unison while your hands beat to a different rhythm.

Yes, it is lonely to be the one who does not fit anywhere but in the echo of your own mind.

And yet,

there is wonder in it, there is freedom in it.

You know,

to be strange is to be untamed, to live without blueprint, to carry galaxies in your bones and know they cannot name you.

So let them point.

Let them laugh.

Let them whisper outcast like it is a curse.

I will wear strange as a crown.

I will build my throne from the very pieces they tried to break off me.

And in the end, when they need someone to light the dark,

it will be my fire they seek.