THE FRIEND WHO HELD THE LIGHT
My final year arrived with a price tag
I could barely look at without fear.
My project stood before me, almost finished,
yet money had become the locked door
between effort and completion.
I had already poured hours into it,
dreams into it, pieces of myself into it.
The thought of stopping there
felt like watching a house collapse
after you had laid its final brick.
I wondered whether years of work
could end at the edge of an empty pocket.
The thought hurt differently,
because failure was not the only fear.
Waste was.
Then a friend reached out a hand
when mine had begun to fall.
No trumpet announced the kindness,
no crowd gathered to witness it,
but that gesture became a bridge.
Sometimes help does not arrive
as a miracle wrapped in light.
Sometimes it comes quietly,
through one person who says,
"Let me help you finish."
I learned that resilience is sometimes borrowed
until you can grow your own.
And when I finally stood again,
I carried more than gratitude.
I carried a promise to keep going.
About the poet:
Olatinwo Yushau is a compassionate, deeply intuitive poet, performer, and author whose creative practice centers on survival, resilience, and the human evolution through adversity.
