Exception

A sharp, compact meditation on standing alone. Butler's poem examines the singular figure who refuses to blend into the crowd, exploring what it means to be 'an exception' in a world that prizes uniformity. The verse is precise and economical, building its argument through contrast and careful observation. There is something defiant in its cadence, a quiet celebration of the nonconformist. The poem asks whether the exceptional are blessed or cursed by their difference, leaving the answer suspended in the reader's own experience. For anyone who has ever felt too strange, too loud, too different for the ordinary world.