The Sellout That Had A Soul

The cost of telling the truth, when truth has a market rate.

Photo by Robert Arnar on Unsplash

They said,

“Speak your truth.”

But they meant

perform it.

Dress it up in growth,

dip it in digestible grief,

sell it as a soft metaphor

so no one squirms at the sight of blood.

So I did.

I told them I was spiraling.

And they prescribed playlists.

Mantras.

“Practice gratitude,”

as if that’s going to shut the screaming in my head.

I shook the right hands.

Smiled like a snake when I had to take a photo.

Told the story they wanted,

not the one that happened.

It escalated.

I played the part.

Made all the right connections.

Rose to a level they called control

while they twisted me into a clean little caption.

A sad marionette,

printing stories of things that never happened,

much less mattered.

They killed my piece on class inequality

and had me write a review of a car,

a steering wheel I’ll never grip,

a driver’s seat I’ll never claim.

Hell, I don’t even drive.

But my name?

Right there in the byline.

Stamped like a passport I don’t believe in.

They said,

“You matter.”

But they meant,

“You matter while you entertain us.

While you teach us.

While you don’t get too real.”

I became their favorite horror story,

the one they tell with a trigger warning

and a heart emoji.

I bled for them.

They praised the performance.

At events with whisky sodas and curated sadness,

they sipped while I sunk.

I brought up inequality

and they changed the subject

to openings and launch dates.

They showed up in linen suits and overpriced irony.

I showed up in my favorite pair of black jeans

and an At the Drive-In tee shirt.

They asked—well, they mocked, to be honest,

if I had anything else to wear.

Like I give a shit.

Me? I tried.

I showed up with my shame stitched to my sleeve.

Kept going when the alcohol muted everything but the ache.

Tried to do it their way.

Eat. Pray. Lie.

Me? I stayed.

Stayed when their questions turned cold.

Stayed when silence replaced sympathy.

Stayed when they talked about me

like I wasn’t still standing in the room.

Now I’m the fine print

beneath your borrowed affirmations.

A shadow behind your spotlighted scars.

But somehow I’m still upright.

Not scrubbed clean.

Not Pinterest-sanitized.

With sludge for blood.

Just me, all bruises and broken bones.

I’m not healed.

I’m haunted.

And don’t get it twisted,

healing isn’t linear.

Don’t sell me absolution like it’s a three-act arc.

They don’t want truth.

They want testimony with a filter.

Pain wrapped in punchlines.

Redemption with a call-to-action.

But me?

I’m not, and never will be,

your feel-good story.

I’m the black mold behind your drywall.

The TV that doesn’t flicker, just stares back,

channeling what you won’t face,

then suddenly screams.

The ghost with human skin.

The symphony of the segregated.

So don’t ask how I’m doing

unless you’re ready to hear it all.

The grief.

The rot in my gut.

The truth you won’t repost.

And the worst part?

They’ll still say I’m bitter.

Still call it “just a phase.”

That shit was fifteen years ago.

Still act like survival is an apology

I haven’t learned how to say right.

They won’t ask what it cost me.

They’ll just quote me.

Post my pain like it’s performance art.

Put me on a carousel of curated breakdowns.

Skip the credits.

Keep the catharsis.

And when I vanish?

When I disappear into a job

that doesn’t care if I eat,

or a hospital room

with fluorescent lights

and no one but robots to talk to?

They look so human.

They’ll say,

“He was always so deep.

Maybe too deep.

His overthinking got him there.”

Like depth is worth a damn.

Yeah, I’m deep

because I’m drowning.

They’ll remember the metaphors.

Forget the man.

And all the while,

I’ll still be here,

scraping the last bit of fight

off the underside of my ribcage.

Swallowing what little warmth is left

between the pills and the pity.

Because that’s what this system demands:

That you fracture quietly.

Collapse without complaint.

Pretend being strong

is the same as being seen.

But me?

My coffin will be wheeled out

by a slew of invisible hands.

And they’ll turn on the waterworks

and say how well they knew me,

when in truth,

they never skimmed past the surface.

Never read the fine print

beneath my byline.

At times,

it feels like I’m being stalked

by a predator I can’t name.

The system’s silent grip,

closing in.

I wrote a piece about getting better.

It’s a feeling I can’t remember.

(Adapted from “Counting Worms” by Knocked Loose.)

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Author’s Note:

This piece was written over a decade ago, when I was writing reviews for a life I didn’t live and wearing a smile I didn’t believe in. It was born out of a growing disillusionment with the media industry — the way it invites truth only when that truth is polished, palatable, and packaged. The original draft sat quietly for years until I revisited it recently, reshaping it with a sharper lens and steadier voice.

The final line includes a nod to Knocked Loose’s “Counting Worms,” whose phrasing captured a tension I’ve felt for years—that unsettling distance between writing about healing, and actually knowing what it feels like.