What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it wait patiently
In the form it first appears?
Or does it start to dry up
as the hope passes that it will ever come true?
Does it dry up and blow away in the face of reality
And cast its shadow over everything within its reach?
Maybe it just sags like a black cloud that smogs the air
As it contaminates those it touches.
Or does the dream just find someone else?
I feel very strange trying to channel Langston Hughes. I remember reading this poem in junior high in connection with Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. I don’t like thinking of this happening with dreams–they are too rare and precious. Maybe I should stop deferring all my dreams.
Finding Our Voices Together 