Still call it home

[Verse 1]
Look
Look man I grew up where the light cut out mid-sentence
Mid-plan mid-dream
Face me I face you" that's ten homes one kitchen
One bath, one scheme
We shared air, thick with kerosene and promise
I ain't call it pain, I just called it being honest
Called it living
Called it trying to make sense when nothing's giving
I seen hunger make men sin
Just to stay breathing
Seen mothers fold prayers into plates
Just to keep believing

I left home with a bag and a plan I half-understood
Couldn't wait for luck
I cooked what I could
learned to stretch small change till it felt like food
Nothing seemed to work but I still typed through the night
I was building something I couldn't yet define
Chasing code like it was spine
Like it could hold me upright
When the world wouldn't

Never hated the hustle
Never cursed the days that broke me open
I needed them moments
They taught me how to stay when everyone's folding
Taught me how to eat shame and still keep my focus
Taught me you can't beg peace from a system that's soulless
Taught me to trust process when progress felt hopeless

I've laid down plans that just slipped away
I've heard silence answer my prayers like delay
But I kept pushing anyway
My country never worked right
Never paid back the lives it drained
Since I been a kid it's been the same complaint
Same leaders, same line of power thieves on parade
I stopped waiting for change and left with the dream
Still burning like rage, but I still call it home
I still call it home
Hoping one day it learns my name

[Verse 2]
I remember heat pressing through the window,
the air too still to think.
Nights where I'd trade dinner for data
Scrolling through code I barely understood
Hoping it would lead somewhere
Anywhere

I used to walk streets that smelled like burnt wires and rain
Watching men argue over dreams that gone stale
I swore I wouldn't end there
I'd stare at billboards of men in suits, faces clean
And I'd think how the country breaks you twice
Once when you start to hope
And again when you start to do
I've had to crash with friends and strangers
Didn't matter
I'd stare at the ceiling till my thoughts started looping
Asking what comes next
What's left to try I'd tell myself
Maybe this is it
Maybe this is the grind before the ground shifts

There were lessons in all of that
You learn not to measure time by clocks but by effort
You learn hunger sharpens the edge of your will
You learn silence doesn't mean peace
It means you've gone too deep inside to speak
And through it, I kept working, staying steady
The kind of steady you build when nothing else holds
I'd see failure, and instead of folding, I be taking notes

[Verse 3]
I started seeing things make sense
The world starting to widen
Cash didn't pour, it trickled
But even that trickle felt holy
Like proof that the work from those nights could start unfolding
I'd look at my hands and think, yeah
These same hands that held nothing now build things that move
I'd still wake early (I still do)
Still grind late (I still do)

But now the grind had shape
I could look at the path behind me and see lessons
Not just pain
People started calling me lucky
Couldn't see the hunger
The years that kept getting longer
But that's alright. I never needed them to
I just kept my head low and my pace clean

My home country still dragging its feet
Still teaching patience by force
Still breaking more than it builds
But I can't unlove it
It's where I learned every skill that saved me
Never left to escape
Left to grow wide enough to come back whole

I still dream of that day when it might work
When it might hold space for those like me
Who carried hope past reason
Until then I keep moving to stay true to the boy who refused to stop
I made it out. Still building and chasing better
Not arrival, this the sound of someone still alive
Still sure that the work was worth it
Still sure that the work is worth it