A Dream Deferred...

Langston Hughes' poem A Dream Deferred always could get a rise out of me.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

My reading the poem always invoked the need for introspection. Was there a part of me unfulfilled? Have I not acted out on my wants and desires? Why could I not defy my environment and sow seeds of opportunities where none seemed to exists? This poem always served as my litmus test to self-realization. And yet, at it's core it again leaves me to ponder, what if the writer spoke on the unrealized dreams of someone with a mental illness?

It's one thing to have frustrated aspirations due to a lack of opportunity. Ghettos overflow with misguided talent. It's a whole other matter where one can't seem to untangle themselves to get from A to B. Where your follow-through challenges and coherence lies in your defective gene pool. It sort of sounds like being passed by a Nobel Prize committee despite one's obvious contribution to the end goal. So it's not enough to have done the work, you have to look the part.

Or else, what? Explode?