Every Son Becomes a Soldier
I look at my arm
that no longer feels
like mine.My muscles remember
a posture that never questioned.Fatigue settles in—
the exhaustion
of holding the same readiness
for a threat
that never arrived
and never left.Violence didn’t shape me.
Continuity did.The informal training lives in tone,
in inheritance,
in the quiet agreement
that someone
must hold the line.Uncommanded,
unspoken—
every son
slowly becomes
a soldier.Readiness
settles into identity.Identity
hardens into uniform.Across the boundary
of this role
the message
finally reaches me.Standing down
isn’t failure.It is the first
uncommanded move.How do you go on
without permission?I step forward,
uncertain,
still guarded—
but done pretending
that returning
to the lie
was ever an option.
©2026 Samia Oldman
WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.
Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.
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