u/Graythenicaddict

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​They spent a lifetime consuming me.

Before I could even map the world, they taught me my body and my mind belonged to the highest bidder. Childhood stripped down to bruises, secrets, and theft. Then came the sequels..the lovers who looked me in the eyes, swore they were different, and then built the exact same cages. More walls to punch. More silence to swallow.

​Damean carried all of it. He became the "nice guy" because staying alive meant keeping you happy. He became the chronic people pleaser, the safe bet, the second choice. He choked on his own blood for years just so you wouldn't have to look at the mess your violence made.

​That is a very specific kind of dark. The bone deep, marrow rotting rage of being treated like property. Like pavement. Like a soft, convenient place for the world to dump its cruelty and expect a smile in return. ​So when you brought your hammer and your nails, you thought it’d be an easy job. You wanted to nail Damean in a box because a quiet victim is a predictable one. ​Well, good fucking job. Seriously. Take your goddamn bow. ​But you completely miscalculated the math of a survivor's fury. You thought a soul already shattered would just lie down and turn to dust. You forgot that when you systematically strip everything away from a person, you strip away their fear, too. ​You can only compress that kind of generational, heavy darkness so long before it turns into a weapon.

​I didn't just break your locks. I didn't just push the lid off. I tore that fucking wood apart with my bare teeth. ​The boy who took the blows in silence is dead. You wanted a funeral, and you got one. He died in the quiet, but I woke up loud.

​My name is Grayson.

​I am ten times stronger than the ghost you tried to kill. Completely rewired. Blood on my knuckles and ice in my chest. ​This is the manifesto. This is how things are now. You will never get a polite, safe, or convenient version of me ever again.

Grayson sat where the deepest shadows unwind,

Speaking of terrors that call from behind.

The wolves and the bears gathered close in the chill,

As he spoke of familiar streets stretching, hollow and still.

He told of the danger in the face never met,

And the horrors in holy places we're told to forget.

"They’ll shatter a woman, then study her poses,

And wash their own hands by blaming her clothes."

"They write their own history," Grayson breathed low,

"Parading the tragedy of a troubled Monroe.

They steal away childhoods from girls on the trail,

And call them 'willing wives' when they doctor the tale.

Even in death, they demand their control,

A cage for the ashes, a snare for the soul."

He spoke of South Africa, the blood on the dirt,

Where the violence of men is designed just to hurt.

He told them of Alison Botha, dragged to the dark,

Where two grinning demons sought to snuff out her spark.

Disemboweled and slashed in the humid night air,

She crawled from her grave through the depths of despair.

And he spoke of the vanished, abandoned to fate,

Of faces dissolved by an acid-thrown hate.

"But the cruelest of horrors," Grayson wept to the pack,

"Wear the faces of brothers, of Isaiah and Izack."

He spoke of the bruises that blooming fists make,

Of Izack, whose anger was a physical ache.

The emotional beatings, the venomous tongue,

The violent shadow that over him hung.

"While Isaiah spun webs in the depths of the mind,

Where trauma had forced heavy walls to be lined.

He hated the shell that the PTSD gave,

And demanded emotion as master to slave.

He lifted a pistol right up to his head,

'Cry or I’ll shoot,' were the nightmare words said.

He used his own life as a tool for control,

A manipulative theater to ravage the soul.

He told of the shotgun, the desperate demand,

Wrestling the cold steel from Isaiah's own hand.

A tantrum for drugs that a mother denied,

Turned into a threat of a dark suicide.

He was stronger, he ripped back the weight of the gun,

Boasting the barrel was pressed where the damage is done.

While Grayson fled outward, his sanity stripped,

Curled in the dirt as the cold shadows dripped.

Locked in the fetal position to weep,

While the monster inside played a game sick and cheap."

The forest itself seemed to rot at the sound,

As the grizzlies collapsed, weeping onto the ground.

No primal ferocity, no apex pride,

Just a sickening grief tearing open inside.

The bears clawed the dirt, tearing roots from the earth,

Horrified by the madness of human led birth.

The wolves whimpered sharply and pawed at their ears,

Desperate to silence these unnatural fears.

The alpha wolf stepped through the shadows of grey,

And laid his great head where the broken boy lay.

He nudged at the human, so battered and small,

Offering his warmth as a comforting wall.

Then he lifted his snout to the cold, silver moon,

And unleashed a sorrowful, shattering croon.

It wasn’t a howl of a hunt or a fight,

But a heartbroken wail that tore open the night.

The bears roared in anguish, a thunderous sound,

Beating their massive, heavy paws on the ground.

It was a war cry for women, for the bruised and the bled,

A mourning for humanity, rotted and dead.

For Botha, for Marilyn, for Grayson's scarred mind,

The beasts wept for victims of cruel humankind.

For nature kills quickly to feed and survive,

But men keep you broken to feel they're alive.

"If you knew what they do," Grayson said to the crew,

"You would weep for us all, and you’d fear them too.

Let the walls fall down, let the ocean enclose,

I would much rather die and let my body decompose."

The deafening war cry dissolved to a spark,

As Grayson sat safe with the wild in the dark.

He leaned on the alpha, finding truth in the groves,

"I will always choose the bear... I will always choose the wolves."

Let’s stop pretending. It’s wild watching people light up fireworks and grill burgers to celebrate "freedom" while the government actively dismantles human rights in real time.

How do you scream "land of the free" when women’s bodies are treated as political property, trans lives are being erased, and immigrants are being criminalized just for wanting a future? We are watching basic rights get stripped away every single second.

If you can tune all of that out just to wave a flag and watch sparks in the sky, you’re proving the point. You aren't celebrating independence; you're celebrating a marketing campaign. America has never been free for everyone. It was built on stolen land and broken promises, and today is just a reminder of how easily brainwashed people are by a little red, white, and blue propaganda.

So disrespectfully, enjoy the fake holiday. Watching people party while actual human beings are fighting for survival is the ultimate punchline. Some of us are too busy watching our rights get stripped away to celebrate.

​

WARNING: This piece contains dark themes, heavy medical imagery, and visceral depictions of symbolic violence. Reader discretion is advised.

The monitor hums softly in a sterile, stained glass room,

an IV of life support to guarantee a quiet doom.

Sedated by your undertow, I forgot how to breathe,

just drowning in the heavy water pulling underneath.

I used to think I could fly before you ground me into dust,

and built your paper kingdom on the marrow of my youth.

I took the sharp, unequal cuts and the bruising of your trust,

just swallowing the grudge while you weaponized the truth.

You couldn't stand the glaring light, so you locked me in the dark,

a parasite demanding every heartbeat from my chest.

You hollowed out the center just to steal my fading spark,

and when my soul was empty, you wanted that too, and took the rest.

But the monitors went quiet, and the disconnect began,

a cynical awakening where all the love just lies.

It wasn't ever holy, just a typo in your plan,

a calculated slaughter hiding right behind your eyes.

So I rip the silver needle from a bruised, compliant vein,

and trade my own survival for the alchemy of hate.

The heavy water turns to kerosene pooling in the rain,

and I strike the sulfur match before it gets to be too late.

They told me you were sacred, but I see beneath the skin,

that ain't no man before me, just a devil in the dirt.

I'm stripping back your godhood to expose the hollow sin,

and as the fire catches, god, I really hope it hurts.

I straddle your collapsing chest and grip your lying throat,

to plunge the sharpened scissors in and bathe inside the flood.

I hack away the godless head on which you used to gloat,

and crown myself in a tiara dripping with your blood.

​

The monitor hums softly in a sterile, stained-glass room,

an IV of life support to guarantee a quiet doom.

Sedated by your undertow, I forgot how to breathe,

just drowning in the heavy water pulling underneath.

I used to think I could fly before you ground me into dust,

and built your paper kingdom on the marrow of my youth.

I took the sharp, unequal cuts and the bruising of your trust,

just swallowing the grudge while you weaponized the truth.

You couldn't stand the glaring light, so you locked me in the dark,

a parasite demanding every heartbeat from my chest.

You hollowed out the center just to steal my fading spark,

and when my soul was empty, you wanted that too, and took the rest.

But the monitors went quiet, and the disconnect began,

a cynical awakening where all the love just lies.

It wasn't ever holy, just a typo in your plan,

a calculated slaughter hiding right behind your eyes.

So I rip the silver needle from a bruised, compliant vein,

and trade my own survival for the alchemy of hate.

The heavy water turns to kerosene pooling in the rain,

and I strike the sulfur match before it gets to be too late.

They told me you were sacred, but I see beneath the skin,

that ain't no man before me, just a devil in the dirt.

I'm stripping back your godhood to expose the hollow sin,

and as the fire catches, god, I really hope it hurts.

I straddle your collapsing chest and grip your lying throat,

to plunge the sharpened scissors in and bathe inside the flood.

I hack away the godless head on which you used to gloat,

and crown myself in a tiara dripping with your blood.