‘Dreams don’t have timelines, deadlines, and aren’t always in straight lines.’
Extract taken from For Every One
by Jason Reynolds
Published by 404 Ink and Knights Of
for any specific
kind of dream.
It isn’t intended
for a certain genre,
medium,
trade, or
denomination.
It is only intended
Maybe you are a dancer
moving to the sound of your own future;
or a musician
banging strumming bowing plucking
blowing into,
creating soundtracks
for dream trains chugging along
through thick night;
or a painter
spilling and splattering confessions
across the face of stretched canvas;
or an actor
praying at the altar
of your alter ego;
or a photographer,
finger on the button
like a quick-draw cowboy,
shooting
not to kill anyone
but to preserve forever;
or maybe even
a writer
for some strange reason,
writing expert books,
pages of good intention
and rah-rah and fantasy
and sometimes truth,
or maybe even letters to people
you don’t know but
do know you love.
Or maybe you aren’t
an artist at all.
Maybe you’re an athlete,
a gladiator hoping for
a shot at the lion.
Maybe you’re eighteen
and plan to make your first million
by twenty-five
(it’s not impossible).
Or maybe you’re eighteen
and plan to make it to twenty-one
(it’s not impossible, nor is
twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four).
At twenty-five I moved back in with my
mother
and found out
she loved to teach
little kids,
and bake,
and help the needy –
her passion made plain,
her dream made real
after forty years
of forty hours a week
behind a desk.
You might be fifty
and think it’s too late.
Dreams don’t have timelines,
deadlines,
and aren’t always in
straight lines.
your dream is to have a family,
to wear corny T-shirts
and hold up signs
and be the cameraman
at the little one’s
games.
To kiss your child
on head and heart,
selflessly fertilizing
his or her passion.
Stay awake with them
when the dream
is crying
like a colicky infant;
help them feed it
and before sleep
do your best to
smother
that tiny ember
of doubt and fear
that glows
beneath the brush.
The awkward angels
with crooked halos and
second-hand wings.
The irresponsible
and curious
fire-bellied babies.
The deformed, with
hearts on the outside
and ears on the inside.
The squares who
use nine-to-five cubes
as planning sessions
for the real work.
For the rebel children,
the wild ones
the long-shots
the bad-mouthed
the side-eyed
the terribly terribly
terribly envied
secretly
by the safe.
For those who bear the cross –
the two perpendicular
planks of passion –
who find life is best
when nailed to it.
For the jumpers.
For the jumpers.
For the jumpers.
to remind us
that we are many.
That we are right
for trying.
That purpose is real.
That making it is possible.
For Every One by Jason Reynolds is published by 404 Ink and Knights Of, priced £5.00