Steam and Stubborn Pages

To the boy who studied by the roadside resto’s dim flicker, muffling jeers with pages turned in stubborn hands— each “you’ll fail” dissolved into the steam of instant coffee, your only shield against the dark. They said your mind was a room with locked doors, but you wore down the keys with every sleepless night. The floor where you crouched to hide report cards now holds letters addressed to cities threaded with light. Your palms, cracked from scrubbing car windows clean, smooth invoices and keyboards, but still bear the stain of soap and sweat—quiet proof of the hours you traded for a future no one else could name. You don’t shout your wins. They hum in the calm of a rented flat where silence feels like peace. The child who clutched pencils like lifelines smiles, finally, at how far a stubborn heart can reach. -