An ode to the alt

To those who dress and act differently
With the spikes, contacts, wild and unapologetically polychromatic hair,
You are beautiful.

Whether you were born in the bleakest black of the darkest abyss,
Or are part of the armored front that fantasizes about CBGB and how epic it’d be to stage dive like Iggy.
Whether your tone is rough like you plaid and the ridges on your cut up jeans,
Trapped in your heart-shaped box for weeks I salute you
and I raise both hands with horns up especially, if you ever banged heads like you had suicidal tendencies and wanted to ride that crazy train with Ozzy.

You see the funny thing is,
The kids with my black skin get told by our own that it’s a white thing
but I’m here to tell you that that ain’t true,
Because the white kids look like this get told "you don’t belong here" too.

But I didn’t come here today to talk about race, this poem is about pride.
Pride in our culture, Goth, Punk, Grunge, alt of all kind.
We wear a sunny disposition with our songs that express the emotions everyone is too scared to admit they have and hide.

It’s an ode and salutes to you,
You beautiful psychopaths who
Tread their own path when the sign says "Keep your feet off the grass"
The. world. is. yours.

N-dgo