The Big Letter in Dream
When we were children our only choices of profession to our possible degrees were “Doctor, Firefighter and ‘Famous Person’”
And they were acceptable,
Now it’s one out of three
Be careful with your choice of degree
It will define you like your days in high school
The writer was a liberal angry feminist freak
The politician had a 100 average going for VD
The vet was crying in the bathroom stall with her lunch untouched as her tears withered holes on her paper she could not understand
“Why did they lie to us?”
Little did they know, their teachers were spewing hot lies out of their mouth
Your choice of degree is not based on your heart, it follows the compass of your rent and taxes’ navigation chart
‘Reach for your dreams’? Oh please.
That creative mentality you have been taught to pursue would reveal itself as nothing but elm wood burning inside the very furnace of,
The very place that taught your dreams, now they’re set aflames crisping into hickory
and heating it up so nicely to teach the next generation lies after you,
Your preschool
I remember ripping up the already crumpled and beaten up sheet of scribble notes for possible plot lines out of aggravation I had cursed myself for writing again, asking why I couldn’t do anything else? When it is true that pursuing what you love will just damn you?
And it took turning 15 to realize that I am labeled a misfortune, a misguided soul. My heart was a curse, It can only be soothed by the steaming honey dew of writing and none more
And as I look back, the only thing misfortunate about me was that I would feel envy of the others, who had the other “real” professions in mind
For the sake of my future, I had turned into a glass ballerina, spinning and pirouetting mindlessly, letting my father’s plan’s for my future guide me
And as I landed in his arms, I realized he had butterfingers
And there I crashed into smithereens out of my own whim
He could not understand why I was so weak so he let my pill do it for him
And to this day, I do not blame him because I asked for it
I stubbornly still believed my teachers in Pre K that you could be whatever you wanted to be
So at that time I could not understand why the writer was not mentioned, why she was not accepted, why she cried every darkened night and was not loved by society
But it doesnt love
It lures with its bait that your family will accept you and love you if you follow the degree and not follow your dreams
So abandon the dream, it’ll ruin the ashes that’s left of you
And your family will plunk softly at your starving heart like cello strings: the song of happiness
And the alternative: If you chose to not reach that degree, if you reach for something far more difficult, if you sprint to your dream
You will wake up every morning to a cackling society
Laughing at you
Seeping its sharpened teeth into your neck
Ripping up the so called “degree” that cannot even pay your rent
And the eyes of the people watching you
They have their own mouths, they say, “I told you so.”
Those heavy, highlighted pupils fogging up your identity - who you are but who are you? - you are your degree
And you cannot even see the eyes of your relatives because their chins will be to their chests
And you blame yourself for ever insisting in a world where your dream and your degree coexist
And it took turning 17 to realize, you are damned if you chose the world where your dream, your passion, and your degree coexist
And you are much worse if they do not