Whatever You Want

When Charlie was twelve, his sister pressed a vinyl record into his hands and whispered, “Don’t let them tell you who you are.” Years later, that record is scratched to hell but still spins. Her voice echoes in the defiance stitched into his jackets, inked on his skin. At fifteen, Charlie sat alone in his room, the record spinning softly. He felt the weight of expectations pressing down, a suffocating blanket of 'shoulds' and 'musts.' In those moments, his sister's words were a lifeline, a reminder that he could carve his own path. At seventeen, guidance counselors frowned at Charlie’s callused fingers, his rebellious hair. Teachers filled margins with warnings: doesn’t apply himself, resistant to authority. But they didn’t know late-night guitar chords or lyrics scrawled in smudged notebooks. They couldn't see that his defiance wasn’t reckless—it was survival. Tonight, Charlie grips the microphone, the stage trembling under his boots, and screams the truth he’d learned early: that nobody else's rules could ever define him. As he sings, he remembers his sister's voice, a guiding light in the chaos. The crowd surges, an undulating sea of bodies and shouted lyrics. The air is thick with the scent of sweat and smoke, and they know, as he does, that freedom echoes feedback, tastes of salt, and feels exactly like refusing to apologize for who the fuck you are.