DREAMS I WANT OR NEED OR BOTH

BELLA AGARWAL DESERT MOUNTAIN HIGH SCHOOL every night, i weep until my eyes swell shut, my dreams taking my body to a place above the diaphanous clouds, i transcend to a place where no one else goes, a place where i can be myself.

here, i catch snowflakes on my tongue, lollipops dissolving in my mouth, sugary sweet syrup spilling from my lips, dribbling down my chin, and my skin feels strange to wear, almost as if i am dawning the body of another. above me, my mind stains sticky colors onto a pure canvas, creating vivid images of my dreams and desires and passions, weaving visions of the life i want for myself. the kaleidoscopic mess melts and pirouettes into a galaxy. my senses are brought to their knees by a billowing nebula as my heart’s violent staccato crescendos, threatening to create a supernova. my hands, clutching paintbrushes tightly with milky knuckles, are stretched towards the shimmering stars, and my fingertips trace the rigid outlines of universes, their sharp edges causing blood to blossom on my scarred palms. picturesque stars twirling around my fingers form glistening rings. moons gently dust my head with lustrous powder, silver flakes intertwine with strands of my coarse hair like metallic ribbons. glimmering constellations waltz with each other, dripping with fire, singing off-key odes to a honeyed fantasy of a life that could

be lived, protostars trailing behind them.

clouds of molecular hydrogen drift lightly, waiting to collide and collapse and transform into beautiful broken things, birthing a series of new stars, new beauty. each swirl of starlight is a spectrum of color, each planet is vibrant and bursting with glassy prisms, free of imperfections.

this utopia feels like crushed velvet in my fingertips, the space that my hands are exploring is a saturated, colorful pandemonium, wild and reckless and breathtakingly ethereal. this utopia feels like crushed velvet in my fingertips, the space that my hands are exploring is a saturated, colorful pandemonium, wild and reckless and breathtakingly ethereal. this interstellar wonderland is alive, brimming with energy.

these cosmos are an incandescent elixir that smooths my fractured mind, a relief from the burden on my shoulders to be everything but what i want to be.

it always hurts to know that when the aurora comes and the sun rises, the painting will evanesce from me, iridescent planets wrap around my wrists like beaded bracelets.

an alluring necklace of comets lightly singes my collarbone.

as morning approaches, silver handcuffs clamp around my wrists.

leaving the wispy ghost of freedom lingering as the feeling of beauty diminuendos. iron weights lock around my ankles.

the art brought color to my monochrome world, but it left only the painfully familiar watercolor of reality, ivory and dull shades of grey splattered with raven ink, the paper brittle and rough.

one day at 2:07 in the morning, purple half moons under my eyes blur my vision.

i tried to paint the future everyone else wants me to have on a crumpled 11 by 8 sheet of printer paper using a cheap $3 brush i stole from my memory of childhood art classes. white-hot chains bind and sear my body, i am trapped.

no matter how many different colors i tried to smear on, it always ended up looking

black & white.

© st. louis youth arts journal 2020 all rights are hereby returned to creators