He walks streets that promise everything tomorrow, but deliver only the weight of waiting,
his hands untested in the world, yet taught to perform as if they were skilled,
his eyes wide with hunger for roads no one else has mapped,
his mind crammed with lessons built for a future already fading
before he has learnt how to hold it,
And still he keeps moving, as if motion alone might carve direction from the air.
Everywhere, he measures trust like currency,
observing who rises and who is left behind,
who bends without breaking, and who bends enough to be broken,
how laughter must be rationed, ideals bartered, dignity leased to those
whose hands lift only those willing to kneel,
how survival tastes like hollow victory, when every edge has already been claimed.
He does things no one has done before,
but the world rewards only attendance, not ingenuity,
only persistence, not the sparks that make him burn,
and he feels the slow erosion of himself,
the compromise of every impulse that once named him,
the quiet duplication of the fakeness he once scorned,
a reflection he does not recognise, yet cannot escape.
He counts the fractures in every promise,
learning which words build and which devour,
how attention is selective, kindness conditional, cruelty absolute,
and how every moment spent giving himself is a debt repaid in absence.
He wishes for absence, isolation,
a world in which he need not perform, bow, or surrender,
but existence presses him forward, relentless.
His energy bled into spaces that demand he be useful,
his hope compressed into glimpses between duties and demands,
and still he dreams, despite knowing the roads may not exist,
that some edge..his edge, might yet survive the making of him.
Feb 4
Feb 4, 2026 at 9:23 AM UTC
He walks streets that promise everything tomorrow, but deliver only the weight of waiting,
his hands untested in the world, yet taught to perform as if they were skilled,
his eyes wide with hunger for roads no one else has mapped,
his mind crammed with lessons built for a future already fading
before he has learnt how to hold it,
And still he keeps moving, as if motion alone might carve direction from the air.
Everywhere, he measures trust like currency,
observing who rises and who is left behind,
who bends without breaking, and who bends enough to be broken,
how laughter must be rationed, ideals bartered, dignity leased to those
whose hands lift only those willing to kneel,
how survival tastes like hollow victory, when every edge has already been claimed.
He does things no one has done before,
but the world rewards only attendance, not ingenuity,
only persistence, not the sparks that make him burn,
and he feels the slow erosion of himself,
the compromise of every impulse that once named him,
the quiet duplication of the fakeness he once scorned,
a reflection he does not recognise, yet cannot escape.
He counts the fractures in every promise,
learning which words build and which devour,
how attention is selective, kindness conditional, cruelty absolute,
and how every moment spent giving himself is a debt repaid in absence.
He wishes for absence, isolation,
a world in which he need not perform, bow, or surrender,
but existence presses him forward, relentless.
His energy bled into spaces that demand he be useful,
his hope compressed into glimpses between duties and demands,
and still he dreams, despite knowing the roads may not exist,
that some edge..his edge, might yet survive the making of him.
This poem, titled Becoming, explores the tension between self and society through the lens of a young boy growing up in Guyana, filled with hope but lacking clear direction. It examines the relentless pressures of a world that rewards conformity over authenticity, and endurance over moral or creative spark. The persona navigates a life where compromise is merely unavoidable, trust is always transactional, and ambition seems to be constantly eroded by the demands and fakeness of those around him.