The People’s Revival

Thoughts?

Let me tell you what poor boys learn.

I was born poor in Appalachia.

By the time it mattered, I was the kid living in a trailer at the junkyard.

And I tried, man.

I got the straight A’s.

I became a state champion wrestler.

I became exceptional at the things they told me mattered.

Because somewhere along the way, I got the idea that if I became exceptional, nobody would be able to treat me like trash.

I was wrong.

I learned there were circles you couldn’t earn your way into.

When they moved me to New Mexico, I learned it quick.

I couldn’t afford the Jordans.

Couldn’t afford the OP shirts.

And when friends dropped me off, I pretended the trailer park was next door.

Think about that.

A kid ashamed to let his friends see where he slept.

I remember the preppy girls taking me aside and explaining that if I wanted to date one of their own, I needed to do better.

Do better.

Motherfucker, I was trying.

I just didn’t have the means.

I had autism and ADHD before anybody gave a shit about autism and ADHD in poor kids.

There weren’t accommodations waiting for boys like me.

There was punishment.

There was lockup.

There were institutions perfectly willing to teach you that if you couldn’t fit into the world they built, there must be something wrong with you.

So I learned.

Poor boys always learn.

Eventually you stop asking:

What do I have to become before I’m enough?

And something harder takes its place.

Fuck you, then.

FTW.

I learned to march to the beat of my own internal drummer.

I learned purpose.

I learned defiance.

I learned how to survive contempt.

And I survived your bullshit.

Hell, I’m still trying to survive it, if I’m being honest.

Because there’s a straight fucking line from

I’m not enough

to

fuck you all.

And sometimes what looks like rebellion from the outside

is just a poor boy who finally got tired of auditioning for the right to belong.