THE COST OF BEING AN AMERICAN SON
by The Prince of Darkness
Dedication
For the ones who see too much in a world that prefers blindness.
For the old souls who carry decency like contraband.
For those labeled “difficult” because they refused to play dumb.
Prologue — “What We Stopped Calling a Sickness”
There’s a sickness we stopped calling a sickness—
the one where people confuse appearance for worth.
It’s everywhere now:
gentle cruelty hiding behind phrased apologies,
moral theater disguised as empathy,
screens glowing with borrowed virtue.
The world learned how to pose for honesty.
But not how to live it.
The loudest voices often come from empty rooms.
And the meekly decent—the ones still showing up quietly—
are made to feel like fossils of conscience.
We call exhaustion “balance.”
We call numbness “growth.”
We call selfishness “boundaries.”
But the truth?
The truth is still heavy.
The truth still costs you friends.
And that’s how you know it’s real.
Nursery Rhyme — “Pretend Parade”
Step right up, join the Pretend Parade,
Where every fake smile gets a grade.
Wave your logic, hide your tears,
Trade your spine for a thousand cheers.
March in line, don’t break the beat—
Truth’s expensive, lies are cheap.
Paint your mask, practice your nod,
Say “I’m fine”—and wink at God.
When the music fades, and crowds disperse,
The clowns remove their borrowed verse.
But under gold and hollow fame,
Every mask remembers its name.
Poem — “The Price of Recognition”
It’s not anger—
it’s recognition.
You see through polished cruelty,
through curated compassion,
through people who post about kindness
just to keep a ranking.
We’re living inside an audition—
everybody wants applause,
nobody wants accountability.
You used to think silence meant peace,
but now you know—
it’s just the sound of people pretending not to care.
And maybe you’re tired—
not just from days,
but from decades of seeing people
celebrate being “real”
while burning the ones who actually are.
You’ve loved people who used truth like decoration—
who borrowed your light to appear profound,
then blamed you for the shadows they cast.
Still, you carried your morals through storms
that drowned entire crowds.
Because loyalty doesn’t make the world easy—
it just makes you lonely in honest ways.
And that’s the price of being the last of a kind.
Epilogue — “When Decency Becomes Rebellion”
In a world where cruelty trends,
honor becomes rebellion.
Honesty doesn’t shine here—it scars.
And integrity doesn’t win—it lingers.
You can’t blend in with people who profit from not feeling.
You can’t stay soft in a system that rewards pretending.
But you can outlast them.
You can choose to be the inconvenient one,
the steady one,
the heart that won’t counterfeit.
Because someday,
when all their noise collapses,
truth will still have your handwriting on it.
Lullaby — “Sleep in the Light You Kept”
Close your eyes, keeper of the old ways.
The world didn’t deserve your clarity—
but history will.
Sleep through the noise,
let their echoes rot in their own praise.
You’ve already passed the only test that mattered—
you stayed real.
Dream of homes built on decency,
not performance.
Dream of voices that mean what they say.
And when morning comes,
don’t rise to prove your worth again.
Rise because you’re still here—
untamed, unbought, unbroken.
The world can chase comfort.
You carry truth.
Rest, old soul.
That’s revolution enough.