Do not be counted among the men
who turn tenderness into a battlefield,
who bruise the very hands
that once reached for them in love.

Do not be counted among the women
who make a religion of resentment,
who mistake bitterness for wisdom
and wound every man for the sins of one.

Do not sit among the crowd
that swallows lies like bread,
that claps for chains
because the chains are polished.

Do not belong to the species
that murders the forest, poisons the river,
and still kneels to pray
for clean air and mercy.

Do not walk with those
who steal innocence from children,
who break small souls
and call their darkness desire.

Do not join the naïve
who blame the sky for their shadows,
who curse the road, the season, the stranger,
but never the hands that chose the path.

Do not become the fool
who laughs at history,
then bleeds beneath the wheel
he was warned would turn again.

Do not be so swallowed by noise
that you forget the sound of your own name.
Do not wander so far into the crowd
that your reflection becomes a stranger.

Remember who you were
before the world taught you disguise.
Remember who you are
beneath applause, failure, fear, and dust.
Remember who you are becoming,
and who you must become
when the hour demands a soul with a spine.

Separate yourself
from the theatre of complaint,
from those who wake each morning
to rehearse yesterday’s excuses,
who curse the darkness
but refuse to strike a match.

Rise apart.

Not in pride,
but in purity.
Not in hatred,
but in clarity.
Not because you are better than the world,
but because you refuse
to become what is breaking it.

Step out of the herd.
Step out of the spell.
Step out of the matrix of borrowed anger,
borrowed opinions, borrowed despair.

Let your life become evidence
that a human being can still choose light,
can still choose discipline,
can still choose mercy,
can still choose truth
when falsehood is fashionable.

Separate yourself.

And when they ask why you walk alone,
tell them:

Some roads are too sacred
for the crowd.