i dreamed a lot
i was good at it
good at a lot of other things too
garden variety smart kid
with too many activities
fingers in many pies

i would taste them all
i would have it all
i was on top of the world
(until later, a reverse apotheosis)

but a writer
always a writer
my bedside drawer
stuffed full of papers
worlds i mapped out
characters sketched
their stories unfolding
i planned worlds
i had dreamt
and wished to bring them
to life

until i turned literary
abandoned sheer creation
strung words like lanterns
around myself
you have to illuminate
dark spaces
somehow

and now still waiting
trying / scribbling / dreaming
accepting of both madcap fantasies
elaborate prose
and poetic tomfoolery

may these lanterns never go out

[from the daily prompt, which i just discovered]