My greatest fear
Is to one day realize
That I have surpassed
The point of possibility.
That I had,
Somewhere long in the past,
Hit my stride
And I allowed my life to pass me by
In dull streaks
Of grey and beige.

I fear that I will,
One day,
reflect upon my life
And see only
9:00 P.M. bedtimes,
And 4th of July barbecues
With people
Who did not care to know
What the fireworks
Would look like.

I fear that I will
Watch as my hands wrinkle,
And that I will
simply allow my eyes
To resign from unaided sight.
For I will understand,
Better than most,
That the days
Of perceiving wonders
Have long passed them by.

I fear that
An endless string of
Early nights
Will erase from my memory
The image of crackling lights
Cutting through thick darkness;
And the feeling of lake water
When shrouded in moonlight
And secrecy
And adventure.

I fear that
Consistency
Will replace curiosity.
That 4th of July barbecues
And beige conversations
And the possibility
of failure
Will keep me
from experiencing
Passion
And hunger
And excitement.

I fear
That I will forfeit
My only life
For the sake of
Conventionality.
And that I will be remembered,
Even by those who loved me most,
In in only hazy hues
Of black-and-white.

My greatest fear
Is that,
One day,
I stop demanding
That the world
Let me see
The fireworks.

WORDS FROM THE AUTHOR
Ariana Dockham

As I’ve grown older, I’ve begun to realize how easy it is to forget that you still deserve to do what you want to do. I have a job and go to school full-time, and it’s easy to just let your life fall into a cycle of going from one to the other with short gaps in between. Even though I don’t particularly enjoy going to either thing, I realize that I have to in order to become a responsible adult. However, I also realize that I am not invalid for wanting to actually have fun in the spaces between my responsibilities. I’ve noticed that a lot of the time, I feel guilty if I use my spare time to do things that I enjoy because I feel like I should be doing more ‘productive’ things. However, like I talk about in my poem, I’m worried that if I’m not taking the time to have enjoy myself while I’m young, that I’ll just completely stop. I mention in the poem that I’m worried that I’ll ‘forfeit my entire life for the sake of conventionality’, this line is the most important one because it’s summing up the message of the entire poem. I only get to live once, and I don’t ever want to look back on my life and wish that I lived it better.

REVISION DECISION

In the first draft of this poem, I only mentioned fireworks in the second stanza. However, as I continued writing it, I realized that they were the perfect symbol to represent what I want out of life. In America, fireworks are best known for being set of on the 4th of July. They are a type of symbol to celebrate our freedom and independence. I decided to have fireworks to represent my aspirations because I aspire to be able to be free and independent instead of being bound to a mundane lifestyle that I’ll end up regretting. Once I decided that I wanted this poem to focus more on the symbolic representation of freedom through fireworks, I mentioned them a few more times through out and then at the end. I think it really changed the meaning of the poem, and made what I was trying to say a little more clear.

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