They say the strong will carry on,
but they don’t feel the weight I don at dawn.
A daughter’s smile, my daily breath,
but joy’s taxed hourly, and life starves to death.
Two clocks, two jobs, no time to grieve,
I stitch the seams each time they leave.
My mother’s eyes forget the years,
my brother’s mind is chained by fears.
No village came, just silence loud,
no hand to help, just ghostly crowds.
I patch the roof with blistered palms,
while whispering prayers like weathered psalms.
The fridge half-stocked, the bills full-grown,
yet somehow hope won’t leave me alone.
I’m father, son, and brother too,
a one-man choir aching through.
Who checks on Atlas? Who mends his spine?
When the world he bears is no longer fine?
But still I lift, because love won’t yield,
though no one joins me on this field.
I cry in motion, break in bends.
Then stand because the story lends,
no chapter for surrender’s name,
just battle scars and quiet flame.
So judge me not by what I show,
but by the fires I daily tow.
And if I fall, let none condemn,
for I was never just a man to them.