Student Publishing Program ::

Hannah Barrett

Dream

She woke that summer morning
Trying to remember
The last vestiges
Of a dream from the night before.

A familiar face, with familiar eyes
Loomed hauntingly
In her vision,
Her sleep-shrouded mind obscuring any further detail.

Shadows of emotions crept up on her
Lingering traces of joy, anxiety, sadness, secrecy
Emerged quietly
Like swirls of smoke in the air.

She gave up, shrugged her shoulders unconcernedly,
Throwing off the shadows like a bothersome shawl
And stepped out to embrace the sunlight
Forgetting the past, dismissing the future without a second thought.

She lived that day as though it were her last
Cherishing the laughter and tears swathing her like thick cloth
Flinging herself exuberantly
Into the changing atmosphere.

Loving that nothing stayed the same,
She looked up at the blue sky and saw a rainbow -
A bird flew into the array of color
Suddenly disappearing without so much as a goodbye.

She wondered where the bird had gone,
Whether it had kept flying to infinity,
Or was now preening its feathers
In a paradise unknown to her.

When the night came again, she dreamt
Of climbing a snow-covered mountain
Glistening with moonlighted ice
Because she wanted to touch the stars.

As her hand reached out to stroke one burning sphere,
She fell back down through the clouds to the mortal earth,
Screaming silently,
In frustration and fear.

A pair of wings enveloped her, a golden crown gleamed
Above a pair of eyes she’d seen before.
She stared into them,
And opened her mouth to speak.

Suddenly her eyes opened and she found herself back in reality
Her dream fading away, not even a memory
The eyes lingered a moment in her mind, then vanished -
So once again she rose to meet the day.

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