A Billion Burning Dreams

unfinished poems and dollar bills that I’d unroll from time to time to remind me to hold on. If I looked like what I’ve been through, my blood type would be ink and you would see it coursing in sentences and verses just beneath my skin. If I looked like what I’ve been through, my skin wouldn’t be able tell you what race I am, but you would still judge me. I’d have the misplaced morality of a Christian, the pantheon of a Hindu, the hope of an Atheist, and the history of a Jew. If I looked like half as much as I’ve been through, I’d only be half a person, an incomplete masterwork, a magnum opus loaded only with dummy bullets. I wouldn’t have half the passion that bleeds like beads of sweat from my gaping pores in rivulets of syntax that I dab with loose-leaf paper to preserve what I’ve been through. If I looked like what I’ve been through... you wouldn’t even see me. You would only see the things that make me me ,

7