reverie

By Dorothy Chan

/ˈrev(ə)rē/
noun
a state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts; a daydream.

i am a dreamer of ambition, 
ambitious for a world filled with daisies and butterflies,
coupled with bright sunrises and blue skies 

i listen to the sparrows chirp their morning melodies, 
creating a symphony with the rustling leaves.
i wait for the sky to clear so the sun can arrive,
but that is a reality i am unprepared for.

uncovered by thick clouds and fog,
i see the wilted fields and withering grass,
illuminated by the streaks of sunshine,
hidden under ignorance and indifference,
and soon forgotten under the stroke of darkness.

i tell myself, 
i am Strong and Brave, with an eye for sight.
i envision meadows of lavender instead,
bathing under bright rays of yellow,
yearning to see the butterflies once more

but they tell me,
i am fragile and weak, without a voice with might.
they took my cries calling for the birds
and threw them into the breeze,
letting them succumb to the wind. 

i keep dreaming of the daisies,
waiting for their bloom,
wishing to sit and welcome the warmth,
but this reality can only be
a dream flickering in my mind

because i am only ambitious if i dream,
and i can only dream if i am ambitious.

Performance

Process

I had originally planned to write a personal essay. After all, I was familiar with how to write one and knew exactly what I wanted to write about. Upon its completion, I was proud of what I’ve written, but after some careful deliberation, I decided to start over. I wanted to challenge myself by writing something that I wasn’t too familiar with—so I created a poem. Being unrestricted from the norms of standard essay writing that I familiarized myself with (like capitalization rules and page formatting) I was able to write something completely different from anything that I’ve written before—while staying true to myself by sharing my appreciation for nature and passion for activism.