There’s Room For Me

You tell me to fit in

as if I were clay,

as if my edges were mistakes that needed sanding down.

But I am not a shape you can measure.

I am the comet’s tail,

the tide’s defiance, and

the strange song the wind hums through broken fences.

You want sameness,

I want truth.

You, crave the safety of the already seen,

I crave the shock of something that makes the world look twice.

There is enough room in this wide,

wild earth for the peacock and the crow,

for the cactus and the rose,

for my fire and your water.

I will not shrink to soothe your fear of difference.

I will not bend to make you comfortable.

I was not born to be a shadow in your narrow light.

I was born to blaze my own.