FOOLS.
A poetic thought.
Every week, The RāJèMĪ Review will now make room for a different kind of truth-telling. This new poetic series arrives with its jaw set and its eyes open.
It is a place for language with force in it, for reflection without cowardice, and for the kind of writing that refuses to flatter mediocrity or make peace with smallness.
Some weeks will carry fire. Some will carry memory. Some will carry grief, contempt, clarity, triumph, or warning. Every week will carry intention.
FOOLS is the proper inauguration because it names a reality that serious people encounter early and often: the hostility of the unserious. A disciplined life attracts resentment.
A clean name agitates the corrupt. Purpose irritates the stagnant. This poem speaks from inside that knowledge.
It does not beg for acceptance, and it does not bend itself into softer language for the comfort of people committed to pettiness, envy, noise, and fraud. It speaks plainly. It stands fully upright.
This series belongs to that posture. It belongs to the long tradition of writing that names weakness for what it is, honors dignity without apology, and understands that contempt from fools is often the tax levied against anyone determined to live with self-respect.
That is where this opening poem begins. It begins in full awareness, with no interest in shrinking, and with every intention of remaining whole.
FOOLS.
I walk through this life with my head high and my name clean,
And every cheap mouth in the gutter seems to hiss when I am seen.
Peasants throw stones because their hands were trained for dirt and mud,
Nobodies bark loud for attention because obscurity tastes like blood.
Posers dress in stolen shine and hope the lie will make them grand,
Ignorant fools worship noise because they cannot understand.
Immature losers laugh in packs, all nerve, no weight, no spine,
Feeding on bitterness and envy every time my stars align.
So let them choke on what I am. Let them sneer and foam and spit.
Their hatred is a village tax, and I have long since budgeted it.
I have watched the weak resent the man who would not crawl and clap,
Watched the lazy curse discipline, then fold beneath the map.
They hate the mirror I become. They hate the proof I give.
They hate a life with sharpened edges. They hate a man who lives.
I offend them by existing with intention in my breath.
I remind them every second that decay can walk like death.
You there, with your hollow swagger and your secondhand disgrace,
You mistake a loud opinion for a mind, a mask for face.
You parade your little ego like a king without a field,
All costume, all collapse, all rust concealed beneath a shield.
You wanted easy fellowship from me. You wanted me reduced.
You wanted softness, compromise, my fire bent and used.
You wanted me diluted so your weakness felt less small.
You wanted access to my light while bringing nothing there at all.
I refuse. That refusal cuts. Good. Let it cut you to the bone.
Let every fraud and failed pretender feel the chill of being known.
I was never built to join the choir of the half-awake and bland.
I was built to speak with force and leave the ash upon the land.
Every insult from a fool becomes an anthem in my chest.
Every sneer from lesser men confirms that I have chosen best.
Their hatred is the fee for altitude, the toll for clearer air.
I pay it with a grin because the climb was always mine to bear.
So hate me from the sidelines. Curse me from your cramped little stage.
Gnaw your stale bread of resentment. Rot in your inherited rage.
I will keep moving like a verdict. I will keep rising like a scar.
I will keep standing as the proof of exactly what you are.
And when your noise dissolves to nothing, as the noise of cowards does,
I will remain, whole and burning, loved by those who know what was.
Let peasants stay peasants. Let fools keep begging for applause.
I chose the harder road on purpose, and your hatred is the cause.
— Rājèmi
3:06 PM
12 April 2026