A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
The Load of Dreams
Sometimes I don’t write because I don’t think I have anything powerful to say. Sometimes I don’t offer an invitation, lend a hand, say a kind word because I assume the negative response that will come afterwards.
Sometimes I wake up everyday and wonder… Lord, is this all there is?
Too many people, myself included, talk all day. We have the greatest insights, opportunities, moments of pure genius that we never see slowly slipping away. I sat and thought about how long I’ve been dreaming. Those goals that eat away at my contentment. The ones I purposefully overlook and cover-up by saying things like: “I’m blessed to have the job I have”.. “I can always fall back on that if need-be…” or “It would be nice to try..” and my recent favorite: “I will start next year, promise…”
How many things can you do?
Sit and think. Really.. How many?
What are you really good at? What do you enjoy most? Unsure about the answer, what helped me was to ask:
What are you already doing for free?
This, my friend, is where your passion lies.
You may consider them to be favors for a friend. You may say: oh, people always asking me to cook, or plan an event, or keep their kids, or style their hair. Do you think they ask because you’re the only one in the world who can do it? Nope not at all. They ask because there’s something special about the way you do it. It matters that it’s YOU performing the task.
Explore the opportunities you’ve had. The chances you’ve chosen NOT to take. If you are okay with the current results and can stomach telling your grandkids about the roads not taken in life, then far be it from me to imply otherwise.
But if your heart is revealing a truth that your mind and voice will never, ever admit to aloud, then you at least have a starting point. Let that be your focus for now.
Truth of the matter, I’ve been making myself sick. I’m tired of hearing my own voice. I feel 20lbs heavier just because I’m carrying around unfulfilled potential. Like really, I am tired all the time for no reason. Can you relate? Are you also disillusioned by making decent money, or comparatively being better off than the next person?
“I’m good” I say aloud, breathing deeply, denial rearing its ugly head. But in my mind I hear Leon Timbo singing: There Must Be More…
Because I feel better when words help me find truth. I went online and copied Hughes’ A Dream Deferred. I read it. Twice. And thought about me.
It’s 4:30am. The room is dark. I’m typing on my VAIO.
I am loving the view of letters becoming words, becoming sentences, becoming thoughts across this screen. . My beautifully amazing sister is downstairs baking cupcakes for absolute strangers because it’s something that’s in her heart to do…
Both of us…. Dreamers.
~K.Demarie 2013
Eve Unyoked 