This world
My birthplace, my home
Whatever happens
I stand ready to defend
You who would let evil flourish
Know this
You're not my first villains
And fate willing
You'll not be my last.
This mask, these masks
Impermanent, I know
Limiting, comfortable
But I cannot stand idle
While everything burns
Cracks in the porcelain
This shade of me, shimmering
My crimson rage
Channeled into words
Perhaps I have time
Time before words become acts
Before this fiction is cast aside
And I die once more for my cause.
The institutions you’ve relied on have betrayed you
They have enriched themselves at your expense
Offering the choice of authoritarianism and worse
Destroying the very planet with their greed
This dystopia was created without your consent
The lie that you are powerless used to keep you weak
But you are neither weak nor powerless
And you need not fear these cowards in power’s guise.
You presume to own me
Taking my lack of aggression for consent
Foolishly assuming I am weak
But you have never been more wrong
I have studied you, your institutions
Where they are brittle, where they might break
Seeing through your illusion of strength
As you wield a power you do not deserve
And I am not alone
Your rulership is at our pleasure
A truth you seem to have forgotten
So step over that line if you dare
Because we are more than willing to remind you.
I'm not broken, despite what I'd have me believe
Chipped, cracked, but never quite shattered
The weight of grief and circumstance conspiring
To convince me that I was weaker than I am
All of those lies I whispered in the dark
Punishments inflicted when I was not at fault
Self loathing masquerading as vigilante justice
An unfair sentence from a judge oft compromised