“Not Your Kind of Different”
You say you're different
because you echo each other
in a slightly louder voice.
But I —
I don’t perform rebellion
for your applause.
I don’t need to love
like you do,
live like you do,
strip myself of origin
to fit in your mold
of “free.”
My difference
is not a costume.
It’s a memory.
I carry the stone
you were told to drop.
I speak the tongue
you were taught to unlearn.
I live the grief
you all call history.
You changed your names
to feel modern.
I kept mine
to feel real.
So no —
being different doesn’t mean
loving like you,
living like you,
forgetting like you.
My difference
isn’t loud.
It’s ancestral.
And that’s why
you don’t understand it.