Borrowed Future

I wake inside a thousand routes, the same breath in different dawns

The holy grail glitters somewhere, like a promise with teeth

I carry steel where prayers should be, I call it salvation

If I take one step back, someone else falls forward

So I stand up again, even when the ending breaks

A shed of rust and sunlight, a quiet home that should have been enough

But the fire chose my hands, it asked for more than comfort

I watched a hero in my head, and made him my whole shape

Every kindness became a contract, every smile an oath

I learned to mend what life destroys, to turn loss into tools

And when the night came hungry, I offered my own name

I am clumsy with living, skilled at giving myself away

Still I trace what I need, traced blades from empty air

Each choice is a scar I carry, each wrong turn teaches my spine

Even my bad end leaves a lesson, burning behind my eyes

I will protect, even if it costs the parts of me that want peace

I will remain, when the battlefield follows me home

Forge my regret into a shield, let my ideal cut through fear

If my future is borrowed, I will spend it on you

Endless battle or quiet dawn, the answer is the same

I will protect

One route sharpens the dream, until it shines like a clean drawn sword

I walk with my ideal unblinking, and it hurts but it is pure

Another route bends in the dark, I choose a single hand to hold

The world asks what I will sacrifice, and I learn my own limit

In a world of smaller miracles, I guard a childlike sky

Different rules, same heartbeat, same promise with bruised knuckles

In winter I speak an oath, and the snow remembers my voice

And sometimes the strangest route is simple, a quiet meal, steam rising

A borrowed normal evening, where laughter sounds like home

Yet behind every gentle scene, the forge is still awake

Hollow hours overlap, contradictions breathing in one chest

I have died in ways I cannot name, I have lived past what I deserved

Routes collapse into memory, and I keep walking anyway

I will protect, not because I am certain, but because I cannot stop