A Part of This Dream

A dream; a simple wish that one hoped to accomplish.
Possibilities are endless. Even like a math problem where there are so many answers, there are so many options, but not enough formulas.
My unattainable dream; I grasp it in my hand, but it falls, spilling into a bottomless void.
I stare, but my thoughts linger, not processing what is happening.

"Why don't you give up?" I ask myself that too many times—I am unable to count it.

"Why dwell on the past?" Because that was where everything started.

As I rub my palms together, I inhale. Slouching my back towards the chair, my pencil taps.

What am I afraid of?

Not being able to obtain my dream. This wavering, abandoned dream.

Now when I squint and look closely at the thoughts I scribbled in my notebook's blank pages, thoughts that were the enemy of me, I realize that I am more aware.

Perhaps I should loosen my grip around this meaningless dream, like holding one's parents' hands become embarrassing when one gets older; to let the knot between my dream and hand loosen and come undone? Unacceptable.

I realize this is reality. When the savage winter wind howls through the night, I will still stand fast and strive. I can defend myself.

"I can," I tell myself.

"You can't." Another voice interrupts me. "What is your dream even?"

What is my dream…?

I take a gulp of air and my throat seems to clench, making it harder for me to breath. I lunge and scratch, but there is nothing.

"It's a figment of your imagination." This voice keeps saying. I blindly look for a mute button, but it was inevitable. The voice keeps talking to me; taunting me, challenging me, filling my head with lies. Knowing that I wouldn't listen—I was being disrespectful—their hand drew back. A searing pain sprung on my cheek. I didn't need to confirm what had just happened.

There was no need to.

"…Why do you even exist?" Hearing the soles on the bottom of his shoe not scrape at the floor anymore, my breathing stopped.

I then realize that came from my mouth. I had intended to direct that towards myself.

"Who are you directing that to?" Sharp blue eyes stare back at me. He doesn't blink. "Tell me, are you questioning my existence?"

"I am only questioning my own."

I received not one more glance; he spun around on his heels and began towards the door.

I finally exhaled.

...

I now stare elsewhere. The time that halts the moonlight, my mind running in the darkness.

Beyond confusion, nowhere near close, I glance at a young fellow who was older than I was, inhaling and exhaling a cigarette that slowly burned ember from the corner of his lip. Satisfied, he loosened his lip; the cigarette descended towards the concrete sidewalk. I continue to stare. Embers burst red and slowly became black.

Do my life goals scatter like a cigarette flung into the dawn wind?

I continue to keep that thought plastered in the very back of my head—a reminder.

Did they serve no purpose?

Were they all too vain?

No. This meant my existence was too vain. I refuse to acknowledge that; refuse to let my 'enemy' take advantage over me.

I was fighting nobody, but myself.

And I was losing.

But even so, I still yearn for a purpose. Maybe there was no point. I had no point.

Like a train on the railway, I can't go off it. A path that had already been given. I can't talk about anything outside the track. I can't finish it either; just a dot, period.

"Everything fades away to a shade of grey. They darkness of the heart enslaves the day," the voice says again. His meaning—give up.

But I ignore his warning.

I worry about the breath filling my lungs. Another me inside keeps letting out dry sighs.