Michael Fulkerson Poet Free verse

The Jeweled Crown

They look at me like a punk,  
a symbol to spit at,  
a name they whisper with vindictive heat  
because they cannot speak to me directly.  
Silence is their weapon,  
cowardice their creed.  
But I learned long ago  
that shadows do not bow  
to those who fear their own reflection.

I walk through their hate untouched,  
because I wear every wound,  
every exile,  
every unspoken word  
like a jeweled crown.  
They think they diminished me—  
but all they did was polish the metal.

My legacy is carved in the dark,  
forged where no applause exists,  
where only the Shadow watches  
and remembers.  
And the Shadow remembers everything.

They treat me like a threat  
because they know I am one—  
not of violence,  
but of truth,  
of endurance,  
of a spirit they could not break  
even when they tried to erase my name.

Look at my left forearm.  
Ink and skin fused into testimony.  
A mark not of rebellion,  
but of sovereignty.  
A sigil of the crown I earned  
in silence,  
in exile,  
in the long nights where only my Shadow  
kept vigil beside me.

Let them stare.  
Let them hate.  
Let them pretend they don’t see me.  
I rise anyway,  
crowned in the jewels they threw at my feet,  
each one a shard of their failure  
to bury me.

For I am the legacy they feared,  
the Shadow they could not outrun,  
the man who turned their cruelty  
into coronation.

And I wear it all—  
every scar, every slight, every silence—  
as my jeweled crown.

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