For Everyone

by Jason Reynolds

  For You.

  For Me.

  A NOTE: When I started writing this, I didn’t know what it was. A poem in form only, a letter written in parts, an offering that I’ve now been working on for years.

  A thing.

  But when I think of it now, and the process of it all, I realize that it was basically just the undoing of . . . me—a twenty-something clinging tight to the nugget of thin air I referred to as my dream. And as the meltdown happened, I realized that many of the people around me were melting as well. My friends who stayed up all night with me in Brooklyn—painting, and playing music, writing, practicing and pushing—were growing tired and annoyed, frustrated with the uncertainty. People in my family, the “responsibles,” whom I argued and disagreed with, never knew that I could see that the remnants of this same kind of meltdown that may have happened to them forty years prior were still there, hiding beneath their tongues.

  And for some reason, around this time I also met quite a few teenagers who carried with them an unfortunate practicality. It was as if their imaginations had been seat belted, kept safe from accidents. Sure, they still had adolescent gusto, but only in speech. When asked about their dreams and passions, though, many could only answer halfway. They could admit that the dreams were real and that there were things they wanted to do, say, see, and make, but they couldn’t get past how foolish it is to be foolish.

  And I couldn’t blame them. Any of them. I had tried to do something different, and it was killing me. And my friends. And my family. But the dream was still there, still painfully undeniable.

  So, I started writing this. A letter to myself to keep from quitting. It was written while I was afraid. Unsure. Doubtful. And at first, I wasn’t sure what it was. A poem in form only, a letter written in parts, an offering, that I’ve now been working on for years.

  For me, a mighty, mighty thing.

  “Though we do not wholly believe it yet,

  the interior life is a real life,

  and the intangible dreams of people

  have a tangible effect on the world.”

  —James Baldwin

  ONE

  Dear

  Dreamer,

  THIS LETTER IS BEING WRITTEN

  from a place of raw honesty and love

  but not at all

  a place of expertise

  on how to make

  your dreams come true.

  I don’t know NOTHING ABOUT THAT.

  I HAVEN’T GONE

  THROUGH IT ALL

  and come out on the other side

  pinned with a

  blue ribbon,

  draped in

  a victor’s sash

  or dollar bills

  or even unshakable happiness.

  IN FACT,

  I have yet to see

  my own dream

  made tangible.

  THIS LETTER

  IS BEING WRITTEN

  FROM THE INSIDE.

  From the front line

  and the fault line.

  From the uncertain thick of it all.

  From a man with a

  straight-line mouth

  and an ego

  with a slow leak.

  From a man doing it

  the only way

  he knows how,

  splitting his cries

  and his smiles

  right down the middle,

  swallowing his moonshine mistakes

  while in the sunlight his sweat

  irrigates his life and that life he-

  like you-

  HAS BEEN TILLING, HOPING THERE’S A HARVEST COMING.

  AT SIXTEEN I thought

  I would’ve made it by now.

  At eighteen I said twenty-five

  is when I’d make my first million.

  At twenty-five I moved back in

  with my mother,

  bill collectors

  breathing on me like

  Brooklyn summer.

  And now at

  ALMOST TWENTY-EIGHT

  I’m just

  ALMOST TWENTY-EIGHT.

  SO I GOT

  NO

  ANSWERS.

  THE TRUTH IS

  our dreams could be

  as far away as forever

  or as close as lunchtime.

  Tomorrow you could

  wake up and read

  this letter on a billboard.

  Or you could wake up

  and have forgotten

  who wrote it.

  IT ALL JUST

  DEPENDS.

  Some say on skill.

  Some say on will.

  Some say on luck.

  Some say on buck.

  Some say on race.

  Some say on face.

  Some say on Sunday

  God got a mighty,

  mighty plan.

  Nobody really knows

  what it depends on,

  but everybody knows

  IT DEPENDS.

  SO I WENT OUT

  and bought all the books

  on all the ways to make

  dreams come true,

  laying out the how-to,

  somehow spinning life

  into a fantastic formula

  for dummies and

  dream chasers,

  written by experts and

  dream catchers

  who swear that I

  can one plus one

  and right foot

  left foot

  my way into fulfillment,

  never taking into

  consideration

  all this mess I got

  strapped to my

  back and my head

  and my legs and

  MY HEART.

  And them books

  didn’t bandage my

  fattened flat feet,

  swollen from

  this journey.

  The pages

  didn’t spend

  nor could they

  be eaten to ease

  the hunger.

  Though I could

  curl up with one,

  I couldn’t curl up

  on one

  and get a

  decent rest

  or a respite from

  the hunt.

  USELESS.

  I thought about

  burning them.

  At least

  I could use the

  firelight for this

  LONG AND OFTEN DARK ROAD.

  ONE THING

  I AM NOW CERTAIN OF

  is that this

  road less traveled has

  in fact

  been traveled by more suckers

  than you think.

  All of us out here,

  slumped over wearing

  weird fake

  broken smiles,

  trying to avoid the truth:

  THAT WE ALL GOT ROAD RAGE.

  WE ARE a bunch of

  exhausted stragglers,

  exalted strugglers,

  disciples of the dreamers who

  came before us.

  Students of a

  different bible,

  reading the book

  of the City of Angels

  and the Big Apple,

  an orange house in

  old New Orleans,

  a cheap barren flat

  above a bistro

  in Paris.

  We are led by the Moses in our minds

  to the Promised Land

  in our hearts

  we know is real.

  AT SIXTEEN

  I thought

  I would’ve made it

  by now.

  NOW

  I’m making up

  what ma
king it

  means

  AS I GO.

  But this letter

  is not about making it,

  because I don’t know nothing about that.

  I don’t know nothing about that

  at all.

  TWO

  WHAT I DO KNOW

  is how it feels.

  How it feels

  when that spirit thing

  won’t stop

  raking the metal mug

  across your rib cage,

  clanging

  like a machine gun

  fired at a church bell,

  vibrating everything

  irreverent inside.

  Sounds like a prison

  revolt

  that only you

  can hear

  and feel.

  And nasty things

  are being said

  about the prison guard-

  that scared

  controlling

  oppressive part

  of you

  AND EVERYONE ELSE.

  If you are

  anything like me,

  you hope

  it never stops.

  You hope the

  bubbling never

  dies down

  and the yearning to

  break out and

  break through

  never simmers.

  YOU HOPE

  the voice that

  delivers the

  loudest whispers

  of what you envision never silences.

  That it never cowers behind fear

  and expectations that other people

  strap to your life

  like a backpack full of bricks

  (or books written by

  experts).

  Because if it did-

  if it disappeared,

  if the voices vanished

  and you were no longer

  overtaken by the

  taunts of your own

  potential,

  no longer blinded

  by a perfect vision

  of your purpose,

  no longer engorged

  with passion-

  what would happen?

  WELL,

  I GUESS

  NOTHING.

  And to me,

  there is

  NOTHING SCARIER

  than

  NOTHING.

  Even when nothing seems

  to be going right

  or Nothing seems to be

  going right.

  I’d rather be bothered

  by the loud knocking

  on the door inside.

  Even though I answered

  years ago,

  the knocking continues.

  I’d rather my appetite

  be whet by a teaspoon

  of almost-there

  every now and then.

  I’d rather suffer from

  internal eczema,

  constantly irritated

  by the itch of possibility.

  There have been

  many anxious nights

  where darkness

  has slept around me,

  my friends

  cocooned in a

  coziness I have

  yet to meet.

  My eyes

  swollen with exhaustion,

  my body sputtering

  on its way down,

  but my dream

  won’t stop crying,

  screaming

  like a colicky

  infant.

  Sometimes I think

  it needs to be changed.

  USUALLY

  IT JUST NEEDS TO BE FED.

  So I feed it everything

  I have.

  And

  it feeds me everything

  I have.

  Though the struggle

  is always made to

  sound admirable

  and poetic,

  the thumping uncertainty

  is still there.

  SURE,

  I know my dream

  is as real

  as my hands

  but I grip tight

  a short leash

  with insecurity

  tied to the end

  wagging along

  beside me.

  If you’re like me,

  you’ve struggled trying

  to stomp out

  the flame of doubt

  and fear,

  the warmth and comfort

  always enticing

  and familiar

  though venomous

  and life extinguishing.

  I KNOW PEOPLE WHO

  have burned.

  A burn so violent

  it can’t be categorized

  by any numbered degree.

  I know people who

  have burned

  from foot

  to torso

  emotionally.

  Legs of passion

  turned to soot.

  Yet no matter how

  hard I’ve tried

  to escape it,

  to kill the

  deceptive heat

  dancing like a

  devil’s tongue,

  to douse it with all

  the will and faith

  I can muster,

  I know

  a tiny ember

  always glows

  beneath the brush.

  It whispers to me

  only when I step to

  the edge of excellence.

  My toes clawing

  the cliff,

  my mind already airborne.

  It whispers to me

  that I don’t have wings

  that I don’t have a shot

  that I don’t have a clue

  but to me,

  I don’t have a choice,

  so I jump

  anyway.

  Dreamer,

  if you are like me,

  YOU

  JUMP

  ANYWAY.

  THREE

  THIS LETTER ISN’T

  for any specific

  kind of dream.

  It isn’t intended

  for a certain genre,

  medium,

  trade, or

  denomination.

  It is only intended

  FOR THE COURAGEOUS.

  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.

  DREAMS AREN’T

  RESERVED FOR

  THE CREATIVES.

  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 twen
ty-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.

  JUMP ANYWAY.

  Dreams don’t have timelines,

  deadlines,

  and aren’t always in

  straight lines.

  JUMP ANYWAY.

  OR MAYBE

  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