No silver thread, no voice to name the way—
Just walls and warnings passed from tongue to tongue.
His first breath rose from two-thirds drawn from hell,
A fire dimmed by lessons never asked.

They caged him in with rules and screaming brats,
While puppets smiled through teeth of plastic gloss.
The parents barked like kings who'd lost their crowns;
He bore their bile and learned to taste the rust.

He did not seek what fathers taught their sons—
His compass veered through different kinds of dark.
The mirrors cracked where others found their truth;
His image bloomed in corners out of reach.

He loved in shadows not of shame, but steel,
Refusing pity, pity being death.
No pride parade, no sermon from a mount—
Just glances traded where the rules were weak.

His heart, a map of cities not his own,
Where stone remembers more than blood or name.
The books he kept could speak when men would not;
The flowers thrived while friendships turned to ash.

And still he walks, though all the signs are wrong—
Not built for common roads, but walking still.