Sunshine On The Wrong Side
You were born with daylight leaking out of your eyes in a family that only trusted gloom
Cracked little jokes at funerals
drew smiley faces in the dust on caskets just to make space in the room
Teachers said you talked too much in class
laughed at the wrong moments
turned quiet drills into strange delight
You learned to dim that glow in churches and hospitals
in offices where fluorescent tubes were cold and white
Yet every time the world went full grayscale you felt something in your ribs ignite
Like you were wired to drag color into places that swore they wanted only black and white
Sunshine on the wrong side of town
still burning where nobody asked for light.
You crack up in waiting rooms while the clock ticks slowly
tell stories about your worst days till they sound almost bright
You say “I am not making fun of the pain
I am just trying not to drown in it tonight
” Someone stifles a laugh then thanks you later for pulling them out of the mess
On factory floors and graveyard shifts you are the one who tapes dumb cartoons to rusted lockers so the mornings feel less stress
Yet when your own darkness closes in
people who enjoyed your jokes vanish
saying “you were always the strong one” as they leave
They loved your sunshine when it warmed their skin
not when it flickered or went quiet
not when you needed to breathe
Sunshine on the wrong side of their expectations
still trying to glow while tired of being their pilot.
You keep ending up in corners nobody decorates
in back alleys where kids smoke and trade scars late at night
You bring cheap fairy lights and stolen bar napkins covered in scribbled lyrics
tack them to the bricks till the whole place feels almost right
People call it corny, then come back next week
bring their own markers
add stories in messy handwriting under the string light
You call this your tiny rebellion against the bullshit that only validates the pain
You are not blind to the horror
you just refuse to let it reign
If you are sunshine on the wrong side of the tracks
then those tracks get lit whether the world likes it or not
out of spite, Sunshine on the wrong side
still burning for the kids who never got invited into the light.
Some days your glow feels radioactive
like every joke is forced, every smile put on wrong
too bright, too tight
You sit in your kitchen with the curtains closed
phone face down, dishes breeding in the sink
telling yourself “no one needs my stupid light
” The urge to withdraw hums through your bones
the urge to call someone fights it
both sides wrestling every night
You think of all the times a single dumb meme from a friend kept your hand off the self destruct switch
gave the darkness a tiny, furious bite
Think of all the times you were that for someone else
the stray message, the song link, the “hey
you alive” ping that snapped the thread back tight
You are allowed to go dim, to go quiet
to rest your tired circuits without guilt
you are not obligated to be anyone’s permanent light
Yet the fact that you return at all, after every crash
every blackout
that is what makes your sunshine hit this wrong side so fucking right.
They will tell you to save your brightness for stages
for cameras
for places where it looks good on a feed in the fake light
They will not understand why you would spend it on bus stops and laundromats
on parking lot conversations with strangers whose names you never write
They do not get that you are not performing
you are trying to survive the same damned night
That handing out little fragments of warmth in ugly spaces is how you keep your own ghosts from growing
keep them quiet in the night
You are not sunshine to be bottled and sold
you are a stubborn streetlamp flickering over graffiti and broken glass
refusing to take flight, Sunshine on the wrong side
powering itself off spite and love and pure exhausted fight
Calling soft fuck-yous to the void while holding space for every bruised soul that steps into that light.
When your glow feels crooked and your jokes fall flat
when your loud laugh cracks and you run out of what is polite
Know this, strange bright one
you were never shining in the wrong place
you were illuminating the places that knew nothing of light
You showed up in the alley, in the ward
in the cheap motel hallway where someone was about to give up
and shifted their sight
You are sunshine on the wrong side, and yes
it hurts more here, yes
it burns and blisters and keeps you up all night
Yet I have seen the way people breathe easier around you
the way their shoulders drop when your sarcasm cuts through the fright
If there is any justice, any god with a clue
they are watching you swear at the dark and calling that a sacred fight
Sunshine on the wrong side
flawed and tired and still shining
still dragging small miracles into the light.
When you finally crash, pull the curtains
curse the phone
I will sit in the dim and wait till you spark again
not demand you be bright
Sunshine on the wrong side deserves its own kind of shelter
its own quiet hug
out of the spotlight and out of sight.