I am the definition of insanity and a god of abandoned dreams. Glory, I’ve left behind. I extend my hands and roll my stone up mountains of good intentions and career paths. I have yet to reach the top of any of them.

I’m finished. I fall to my knees and say, “I give up.”

I think I can fall in line and live in the here, the now, the realm of reality. I was never meant to do these things. I’m done. I say I won’t dream. I cover my eyes to block the bulging galaxies of possibilities and turn off the notifications of discoveries and firsts.

40 hrs…
9 to 5…
35K and benefits…
Health Insurance…

I type queries and narrow my searches, then send off another resume. I make myself content with my eyes covered and ears closed. It’s time to be an adult now. It’s time for me to be stable, my own rock.

But I can’t block out all the sounds. I can’t stop my fingers from parting so I can peak at the heavens one more time. I can’t stop my heart from beating faster as it latches onto a passing comment or comet. Soon, there is a new stone before me, bigger than the last, bursting with new dreams I’m afraid to touch.

“I shouldn’t,” I whisper. I turn away, then turn back.

Hope is a growling thing with claws that refuses to release my heart. I tried to kill it, but it bites. It refuses my threats. My nails are ragged, and my hands are callused from pushing so many boulders, each one bigger than the last. I flounder and tear myself apart in this mad dash to be something. I build myself around these dreams. Abandoning them hurts as much as saving them.

Hoping, striving, reaching for things just outside of my grasp. I’m a teacup filling to the brim but always draining through cracks lancing through my lacquered shell.

“It won’t make it. I can’t move this all the way.” I’m desperate for quiet, desperate to be content. But Hope is snarling in my ear once again. I take a breath and raise my hands. 

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“But, what if I can?”