KINDNESS WAS MY CAMOUFLAGE

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe © 2026 Mark Damon Bitkower. Lyrics & written content are original and owned by the author. All rights reserved. No reproduction, redistribution, or use without prior written permission. 🐰🌙𝕵𝖆𝖈𝖐𝕽𝖆𝖇𝖇𝖎𝖙 𝕾𝖑𝖎𝖒𝖘🌙🐰 JackRabbit Slims is the creative persona of Mark Damon Bitkower, a high-output Suno lyricist building a serialized mythological music universe through AI-assisted songcraft. His work blends Jungian shadow work, Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, noir cinema, trauma recovery, INFJ pattern recognition, and forensic empathy into what functions less like a playlist and more like a living novel. Across tens of thousands of songs, JackRabbit Slims turns personal history, archetypal psychology, and cinematic world-building into battle hymns for outsiders, introverts, wounded healers, and sovereign minds. ( Home of Chaos Crew & Cobblestone) **KINDNESS WAS MY CAMOUFLAGE** [Spoken Intro — bar chatter, glass clink, lazy guitar] Before we start— shout-out to **Arnel Pineda**. Man walked into one of the biggest voices in rock and somehow made the road his own. After this show, I'm catching a flight to Los Angeles— Journey at Crypto.com Arena. Yeah, I know. *"Don't Stop Believin'."* I didn't. I did sell my Solana years too early, though. [Laughter] Could've bought an island. Bought some land in **Sisters, Oregon** instead. Turns out dirt doesn't crash overnight. [Beat] Neither does a woman. Usually. [Verse 1] I learned to read a room before I learned to read myself, Kept everybody's secrets on the highest dusty shelf. I knew who needed reassuring, who was ready to explode, Who needed me to carry what they couldn't hold. So I smiled when I was furious, said, "Baby, I'm alright." Called surrender understanding, called disappearing polite. Everybody loved the woman who could swallow every knife— Nobody asked what kindness was costing me at night. [Pre-Chorus] I thought mercy meant endurance. Thought love meant taking blame. Thought keeping everybody warm was worth extinguishing my flame. [Chorus] **Kindness was my camouflage,** I wore it like a skin. You thought you knew the woman 'cause I always let you win. I called my silence empathy, my fear "the higher road." I carried everybody's heart and never shared the load. But there's a difference between grace and vanishing because— I wasn't always being kind. **Kindness was my camouflage.** [Verse 2] There's a woman underneath me I kept locked beneath the floor, Every time she whispered *enough,* I gave somebody one chance more. She wasn't cruel. She wasn't bitter. She wasn't begging for revenge. She just knew a boundary ain't a boundary if it bends. But I could feel their disappointment before I even said the word, So I'd turn my "no" to paragraphs until the "no" could not be heard. Funny how the people who adored my gentle heart got nervous when that gentle heart learned where it stopped and started. [Chorus] **Kindness was my camouflage,** tailored perfectly to please. I made myself convenient just to keep the room at ease. Called my anger something ugly, buried every warning bell, Then wondered why the woman in the mirror looked like hell. There comes a night you quit confusing self-abandonment with love— I wasn't always being kind. **Kindness was my camouflage.** [Instrumental — upright bass, tremolo guitar, distant piano] [Spoken] Bartender asked me once, *"You ever worry you're becoming cold?"* I said, "No. I'm becoming accurate." [Verse 3] See, anger isn't always fire burning everything it finds. Sometimes anger is a compass pointing straight toward crossed lines. Sometimes judgment isn't hatred. Sometimes seeing isn't sin. Sometimes what you call forgiveness is just letting danger in. And that shadow I'd been frightened of? She wasn't some disease. She was every honest sentence I had murdered keeping peace. So I poured her something green tonight, pulled out the empty chair, Said, "I've spent my whole damn life pretending you weren't there." She smiled. Said, *"Took you long enough."* [Bridge — drums enter, vocal rises] I don't need permission. I don't need applause. I don't owe an explanation for protecting what is mine. Some doors close behind me. Some people won't come along. If they only loved the edited me— they never loved me whole. So let them call me difficult. Let them say I've somehow changed. A cage will call you selfish when you finally walk away. [Final Chorus] **Kindness was my camouflage,** but I don't need it now. I can love you without bleeding. I finally learned how. I can hear your disappointment and not rearrange my soul. I can watch you misunderstand me and still leave myself whole. There was never something broken in the fire underneath— I was using all my kindness to hide what I believed. No more smiling through the violation. No more shrinking for applause. Tonight I came uncovered. **No kindness as camouflage.** [Outro — piano, bass, glasses clinking] Tomorrow I'll be somewhere westbound, singing Journey with the crowd. Then back beneath those Oregon pines where the silence ain't so loud. I sold the coins. I bought the dirt. Maybe timing ain't my gift. But I finally quit investing in relationships that dip. [Laughter] Bartender— put that one on my tab. And if somebody asks where the nice girl went... Tell 'em she bought land in Sisters. And the woman who replaced her? She finally came home.