In the wake of my youth, I feel the intangible. If many are the afflictions of the righteous, how many are the afflictions of me? Beaten and battered, my spirit man limps inside of me. Being sixteen in a mad man's dream ain't easy. I remember a time when my poetry didn't have to rhyme to be considered art. A time when throwing on a hoodie and some sweats cut it. But where'd the love go? The tongues of high school students cut deep an bleed long like the incision of a surgeon's scalpel. And so my emotions bleed crimson red- they bleed through despair straight to liberation. My struggle is won, but my fight was long- winded.