Against the Weight - Written by : Lovon P.

 Jaylen stood in front of the cracked mirror in his small bathroom, his fists clenched on the sink’s edge. The cold water dripped from his face, tracing the exhaustion carved into his features. It was another day, another grind, another attempt to prove himself in a world that seemed determined to ignore him. At 23, Jaylen had dreams bigger than his bank account and drive stronger than his circumstances. Yet no matter how hard he worked, it felt like the world had already decided his worth. 

  He clocked into his warehouse job every morning at 5 AM, unloading trucks in the biting cold, while his coworkers laughed behind his back. They mocked his ambition, his quiet determination to rise above the chaos that surrounded him.“You tryna be a boss, huh?” a coworker sneered once, slapping the brim of Jaylen’s hat. “Good luck with that.”Jaylen didn’t respond. 

  He never did. He let his work speak for him. He stayed late, took extra shifts, and studied for business classes during his breaks. But the more he gave, the more the world pushed back. Walking home after another double shift, he passed a group of guys hanging on the corner. Their laughter carried on the wind, sharp and mocking. 

  “Yo, Jaylen, you still working that weak-ass job?” one of them called out. Jaylen ignored them, shoving his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. He kept walking, the city’s harshness pressing in on him. The streetlights above flickered, casting shadows that seemed to stretch endlessly. 

  “Man, they don’t see you,” his cousin Darius had told him the other night over the phone. “You can break your back, and they still won’t respect you. That’s just how it is for us.” Jaylen’s jaw tightened at the memory. He didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to accept that his efforts were meaningless. 

    But tonight, as he unlocked the door to his cramped apartment, he felt the weight of it all crushing him. He sat on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands. For a moment, he considered giving up—just letting life carry him wherever it wanted. Maybe he was chasing something that wasn’t meant for him. But then he thought of his mother, who worked two jobs to keep him fed and in school. 

 He thought of the little boy who once dreamed of owning his own business, who used to sketch logos and company names in the margins of his notebooks. Jaylen stood up, grabbed his notebook from the nightstand, and opened it to a fresh page. He wrote in big, bold letters: “They won’t see me coming.”The world might not respect him now, but he wasn’t going to stop. He’d fight for his place, no matter how many times he was knocked down. Because if there was one thing Jaylen knew, it was this: respect wasn’t given. It was earned. And he would earn it, even if it killed him.