No, no he wasn't. No I wasn't, I mean.

I am an heir. We are all heirs to the wastes. We're all the kings of stale christmases and rusty oil rigs, you see? I am, more than most, an heir to rickety hip bones; an heir to malformation and malignment, apathy and home surgery. We were and are, all glorious heirs to your poison. We were and are, heroes of villainy. We are the unfortunate, the proud, the cancer and the gemini against a nuclear horizon.

They stayed away when I was young. They kept their short, fragile arms-length away. They, they, they. All of them: the press, the news, my classmates. Most would come close, in awe or in disgust, and when I felt their fear I showed them my lego made of yellowed birds' teeth. 
I told them it was lies stacking on top of lies.
I told them it was them. I told those filthy tourist bastards to go back to Odessa.

There was only one of us back then, fit to make their flesh crawl at our lewdness and imperfection. We'd fight, and we'd get strong. We'd be torturous cannibals of ability, armed to the teeth with toothlessness, fishooks, drywall headlocks and the glasgow handshakes we'd learned growing up under the misguided stares of the greedy and imbalanced. 

Respect your elders.
I'd learned much in this respect of their respect, and my respect evolved into a wretched beast like me that no amount of amazing grace would cover up-- let alone save!
It was foolishness. It was self-destruction. It was stitching your lips up, and screaming loud enough to break them, until you couldn't use them anymore.
God I miss it.
Allah, I miss it.

Now all I have left is a wallpaper of tattoos and a necktie noose to barely hold me above the nonsense.
Don't scoff; don't laugh.
Don't you fucking dare.
I mighta lost my fangs in the war,
but I didn't lose my stare.