Childhood

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode? – Langston Hughes

Years have a way of adding to the meaning of things.

One day you just wake up and you’re like “snap!, this is what this woman meant when she kept repeating this saying…”

Yeah so we sit in tiny school rooms and recite in oblivion, after all a letter grade is all we really need isn’t it?

And then there’s that part of the story where we fold little pieces of paper and throw them at our friends trying to get their attention. We grew too smart to allow carelessness to allow us get discovered.

-“psssst…look how big his butt is, why did he not chose pants that were a little less tight?!”

It was absolutely annoying to utter a string of words in all excitement and honesty only for your friend to stare blankly at you and say huh?

-“huh”?!

-“Oh boy”!

-“Are you telling me you DID NOT HEAR ALL I SAID”?!

-“Noooooooooo”….

-“Sigh”

-“Then write it on a piece of paper”.

-“Noooooooooo if it gets intercepted, we’ll be in big trouble”.

-“Oh well then wait till after class”

-“Sigh. The info will lose it’s relevance by then”

-“Tant pis”

-Mtchew.

“So what were you saying?” My friend now has the time to come back and ask useless questions. I give in anyway, just for the sake of conversation and a giggle or two. One of the things a teenage girl does is gossip. “So his pants were too tight and there was that bulge and he sat on my table and I had that mathematical instrument in between my fingers all the while! I really just wanted to pierce the skin beneath his zipper with it just to see what he would do”!

“Hehe”.