# I'm Different Already I'm different already— don't need to wait for tomorrow to prove myself strange. My eyes have seen what others haven't; my ears have caught whispers meant for no one. The ordinary world slides past like silk through my fingers. I cannot hold it. Even as a child, I knew the secret names of things— the loneliness inside joy, the small rebellion hidden in obedience. They say: *Wait, you'll grow into it.* They say: *Time will make you normal.* But I was born into this difference, the way trees are born into their roots. So I'm not waiting. I'm not apologizing. I'm different already— this is simply what it means to be me.

I'm different now...Is it age that made me,
or time's weathering—those marks etched across the face?
Perhaps it's the weight of years, the slow accumulation
of living, that reshapes the soul and the flesh.

Today I feel it: I'm different...I can't conceal the thorns.
It matters little that some turn away in anger.
But true to myself, I sleep without disturbance,
truth burning clear in my eyes like an omnipotent flame.

The heart needs no convincing—in an instant it knows
hypocrisy, meanness, the lie, the betrayer's poison kiss.
Bled by my own foolish blunders,
yet even when struck low, I rise again.

Am I more solid now, or simply stronger...?
Each day I live as though it were my last.
I've been spat upon, I've stumbled, but never fallen backward.
And I no longer pay the tax of what the world thinks.