The weight arrives before the morning light.

A heavy hand presses upon the chest.

We sleep in tears, we wake into the fight,

no time to breathe, no place to put the rest.

They peeled away the childhood that I loved

and left me exposed, shivering in the cold.

Into this sudden world I was pushed and shoved,

a child’s heart made prematurely old.

I wake in the dampness of my own tears,

then sleep back in them before the sun comes down.

No one is coming with a shoulder.

To be the pillar means you are forbidden from leaning.

Four generations carried this same chain.

Four generations could not break the lock.

Now four generations of unhealed debt

are stacked upon me like an iron block.

Out on the street, they look at empty hands.

They ask why there is no empire to show for all my years,

never asking where my starting line was drawn.

They call it laziness.

“What are you doing with your life?”

They measure what they see

against the glittering lives on distant screens.

They ask why seeds refuse to grow

when the soil barely received water or care.

So tell me what to do with this spine.

Do I break my own back today

to set twenty more free

or do I drop the block, save myself,

and watch my children walk this exact same track?

It is terrifying.

It is exhausting.

It is unfair.

To bleed in secret just to hold the line.

To swallow every scream and say "I'm fine".

What if breaking the cycle

requires breaking me?