The Genuine Beauty of Dreams

Our world is filled with such

Delicate things, such

Beautiful little lights we

Find glittering in our eyes and

Try to tuck

Into pages of torn-out notebook paper we

Fold into our pockets and the creases

In our palms;

There’s a boy in my grade who

Plays the piano so beautifully, whose

Fingers dance across the keys and

You can tell each careful note flows

With the dreams of his heart and

A labor of love, one

That flows so smoothly, even though

He probably stumbled at first;

It doesn’t sound like it, though, as

He plays a song, so sweet, for

A group of girls to dance to, the

Sparkling wings of their act fanned out

Around their shoulders, slow and

Graceful and

Absolutely beautiful;

In our show is another boy, an

Actor and singer whose accent

Makes his words all the prettier, and

Who once told us all to thank

One another

For the kindness that lingers

All around us; he

Smiles so genuinely, and

You can see his dreams as they shimmer

All around him;

Those dreams (of

The piano and the firefly wings, and

Of the boy who carries stars

Everywhere he goes)

Are ones I’ll fold over and over and

Over into tissue paper whose creases

Mirror the ones on my palms.