Conflict to defy consonance
Optimism to defy pessimism
Love to defy apathy
Altruism to defy hedonism
Understanding to defy ignorance
Self-reliance to defy a greater will

I may add, making defiance a habit, pleased me most.
To defy those laws that created pleasant, mediocre drones,
to deny the rapture of unity, to shock those who conform;
seldom could I pry myself from an opportunity
to assert my individuality, and feed that eerie ego-centric appetite.

Obstinate, a mode of existence, better known as stubborn,
and still better known as head strong, became my glee,
my pestilence. Advice, I heeded not, though, of mine, did i feed a lot.

Do not misconstrue, I was not all fire and flames.
No, i wasn't cantankerous and bile but,
rather, serene, complacent, and ambitious-
courteous, amiable, agreeable, personable, popular, and
all the while, i must say superficial, as well.
For how can a man hold so tightly to his keep, to deny the counsel of a well-meaning patron?
and if one cannot be found, then one has yet found anima.

So here I am, in my entirety, very much
unwilling to be assuaged by anyone nor anything,
so very much myself, and yet still so very much
my enmities.

In my rigidity, I am all those things
I never want to be.
Because no matter, they will always leave,
a very dark impression-
of my shadow...

who evokes apathy... to defy suffering?