Have you ever had a dream that takes up twenty-three hours
Of your daily twenty-four?
And it follows you to work, to get-togethers, to school,
All the way back home.

You want it so badly, would give your heart and mind and
Your uppermost third of your leg on the left side.
And it makes you smile when you think about it because it's amazing.
And you think, you hope, you know you'll make it happen.

And then you come down and remember who and what and why you are.
And that dream is mocking and jeering at you.
That dream is picking at you and you don't have the energy to bat it away
So you let it and it picks away more than you would have given.

You wake up in the morning thinking your whole life's been wasted and,
From the other side of the bed, that dream agrees.
You look at all the people who did it and have it and made it and,
From the other side of the bed, that dream is still mocking you.

When you go to work the dream drapes itself over you, broken and nasty
And no one mentions it because they all have their own dreams
That are doing the exact same thing.
Neither do your friends, or strangers, or family.

When you go home some indeterminable amount of time after that dream
Broke you,
You wrestle it to the floor and fold it three hundred times until it's barely a
Speck.

And you pop it into your mouth and swallow it whole
Pretending you can't hear it screaming and fighting all the way down.
You digest that dream but it's still there, ready to be taken up again but you won't
Because you won't get it now and you won't have it later.

On your way to wherever and whenever you see children laughing
And they hold their dreams up high. They love those dreams and those dreams love them.
And your stomach twists and turns as your dream beats at it
But you keep walking. Keep driving. Keep moving.

You close your eyes and scream and cry but you don't get your dream back
Because it hurt you before and you're not fool enough to try again.
When you go to sleep, it will haunt you.
When you're home alone, it will torture you. You know this.

You go home anyway and it stabs a knife through your abdomen and
You don't flinch at all, it was expected.
And you go to your room and lay down to stare at nothing for an hour or two
Until you think that, maybe, crying will ease the emptiness.

So you think of the saddest things that would send the hardest heart into waterworks
And you wait because, two hundred and eighty-eight hours later
Because one million three hundred and sixty-eight thousand seconds later
You still haven't shed a tear.