What Victory Tastes Like

They talk about the winning like it’s champagne and confetti,
Like the moment that you clinch it,
all the world’s already ready,
But the real taste of a victory is different in your mouth,
It’s a little bit of iron and a little bit of doubt.

It’s sweet but it’s not candy and it’s warm but isn’t clean,
It’s everything you burned to get it, pressed into a scene,
It’s the handshake you were promised
and the sleep you finally get,
And underneath all that, the quiet promise of the next.

What victory tastes like, not what I imagined,
Not the poster and the fanfare and the city going ragged,
What victory tastes like, it’s a complicated meal,
Half of hunger finally answered, half the appetite revealed.

I won a thing at twenty-three and stood there in the aftermath,
Expecting some heavenly choir, maybe a golden path,
What I got was a deep exhale and then a deeper question:
Is this everything I wanted, and what’s the next possession?

Because victory is not an end, it’s barely a beginning,
It’s the punctuation in a sentence that keeps spinning,
The comma in the middle of a longer declaration,
Every conquest just a doorway to the next campaigning station.

I’ll take my victory and I’ll let it settle in,
I’ll acknowledge every scar and cut that led me to begin,
Then I’ll wipe my mouth and get my bearings for the next,
Because the taste of it’s the fuel
and the fuel is what comes next.