The Price of Perception

Do not apologize-

for thinking too much,

for feeling too deeply.

Yours is not a damaged mind,

but one that cannot unsee

what is real.

Truth is not dust

to be wiped away

with the towel of promise,

of greed,

by hands too full of power

to lift anyone else.

It is not your choice

to be aware,

to understand,

to seek more

of what presses in from all sides.

You carry fact,

honesty,

and humanity

like a fragile thing

held above your head

while walking through a rushing creek-

a soldier desperate to save

through action.

The fact that you see

through the charlatan’s trick

is not your fault.

You paid the same admission price

as everyone else.

But now the choice is yours:

Will you tilt yourself

to shield the audience’s view?

Or will you stop the show-

tear back the curtain,

and explain the error

to all in attendance?

And what a choice it is.

What power,

what pressure,

what integrity it takes

in that one impossible moment.

To know

you are the only one

who sees through the glitz,

the glamour,

the bones of the stage,

the lights,

the paint,

the mirrors.

To feel the pull-

the need-

the responsibility

to show them

what they were never meant to see.

“The Price of Perception” is a meditation on what it means to see too clearly, too early-and the cost of naming the lie when no one else is ready to hear it. Part of Empire of the Unchosen: Selections, a poetic memoir on refusal, identity, and the emotional toll of bearing witness.

Author Note: I’m building a trauma-informed emotional app that actually gives a damn and writing up the receipts of a life built without instructions for my AuDHD. ❤️ Help me create it (without burning out): https://bit.ly/BettyFund