His Promise

He told himself that
this would be his last shot
For he had already tried this before
And he came back home
like a dog with its tail between the legs
Despite this he decided to try again

The only difference now is that
his youth is not on his side
He can't be young and free
When his own standard of living is his prison
He needed to break out
And he needed to do so soon

Nobody realised this
But he was buying his time
He went to work every day
Working diligently
Doing what everyone else does
He worked hard so that
he could quickly learn the trade
He realised that the more
he understood his work would
Lead to him taking
less time took doing it
That meant he gained
more time in the long run

After work he'd sit in his apartment
He'd sit there thinking
For all he had was a bed and a fridge
So all he could do
Was stew in his thoughts
All he could do was contemplate
His next few moves

The news of his previous failure
Had already made the rounds
They all thought he was done for
But that's the thing
He wasn't out for revenge
He was out for redemption
He could see that there is more in the world
And knowing this was the reason why
he was never satisfied with the ordinary
He couldn't live like that

Because in his case
The grass really was green
on the other side
The only difference is that
there are more obstacles to get there

Heading out into the world alone
Was not ideal
But this was all he could do
Nobody believed in him
Like they did the first time
They all thought he should
Just give in and accept what is
And he also started believing this
He saw himself become a cynic

However he had something with him
He had a promise
One he had made to himself
One that got him through
The winter nights
A promise that he would make it
A promise with only himself
A promise that demanded sacrifice

It demanded that he put in more work
It demanded that he developed himself
It demanded that he fought harder
For that is all he could take with him
A promise to build
A promise that he'd leave
his regrets behind him

For that is the only thing that
Made him go through each day
That is the only thing that
Drove him to push himself
Even when it seemed hard
Because this was truly his last shot
And he had burned
too many bridges to go back