dying dreams

Write a response less than 750 words based on the following sentence:

You look into the mirror, only to see that it isn’t your reflection staring back at you, but…

You look into the mirror only to see that it isn’t your reflection staring back at you, but all your broken dreams and shattered hopes. The shadows cling to your barely visible reflection in the mirror as they all fight for your attention. The dreams you gave up on darken in tone, and wither in pain as the echoes of sleepless nights and endless thinking surrounds you. You reach out – fingertips straining against the misery. The glass mists over, absorbing all your warmth with no mercy as the cold seeps into your veins.

 

Beneath the mist you catch glimpses of faces weaving in and out of what remains of your burned down aspirations. Those faces, they draw tears from your already worn heart. It killed you to abandon your dreams. It killed you to bury deep those memories you thought would last forever. It kills you to see the mirror reflect all the things you’ll never forget right back at you. The world you constructed now lies in tatters – scorched window frames, crooked tiles and lonely rooms. Once those rooms threatened to spill into the corridors with love, laughter, and colour. But now, those rooms sit blanketed in darkness, shrouds of anger making an appearance every now and then – uninvited as usual.

 

But what kills the most is knowing you did nothing to stop the flames from prancing across your dreams. You let someone else hold the torch up to your life, and let them throw the petroleum all over it and set it alight with their raging criticism. It seems the only way forwards is to turn your flaws into ashes, and to chisel away at the foundations of a world someone else is building.

 

It hurts doesn’t it, running aimlessly up concrete stairs that are crumbling before your very next step? You lean against the mirror wanting to get swallowed up into the bleakness, the coldness. To be a part of the mirror where nothing really mattered, nothing really tore you apart as you battled with society and you vs society vs you. You’re like a caged skylark. Free to sing as you please but told where to fly.

 

The chilling realisation that you fell prey to the wishes of society sends you reeling back as the mirror shatters. Glass – sharp, scratches at your skin. But no blood trickles out. How can it when your heart isn’t beating for you, but for someone else who doesn’t care about you?

 

Everything glimmers on the floor, your dreams no longer barricaded in the cruel bars you tried to encompass them with. Some dreams are weaker than others, some fall to pieces before you even start, and others taunt you when you’re wide awake.

 

You don’t care about the pain that shoots through you as you walk on jagged shards of glass. Each cut that adorns your feet is another wound being opened, another dream you’re freeing from the cells of what society told you couldn’t be done.

 

You’ll learn to heal it, to love it, to build an empire on the ashes of dying dreams you’re slowly learning to resuscitate.

 

You tenderly pick up a fragment of glass and see the reflection of your eyes. You’re no longer drowning in the past as the fragment falls to the ground and shatters into pieces. Behind every ruin is a form of beauty that can be savoured. It’s up to you whether you restrain it and starve it of its potential, or allow it to blossom through the cracks in the foundations of whatever you’re building up towards.

 

May, the Mango Queen, hosted the Scribbler’s Challenge earlier in August. After reading all the entries, and having my heart, mind, soul, everything melted by everyone who took part, I wanted to have a go myself, so being the kind soul May is, she emailed me all the prompts. The above is a product of prompt four. I would also highly recommend you to stalk May’s own recreations of her prompts because it’ll leave you mind blown and wishing you penned that.

From now on, this blog is going to feature creative writing with the occasional book review. My blog never really had a niche, but I guess you could say it’s slowly undergoing a transition into becoming a creative writing orientated blog.

I hope you enjoyed today’s post, don’t hesitate to reach out in the comments.

Kiya x