Think a While on Paradox - bad poetry by aiken

Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
~ Langston Hughes

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
~ Mark Twain

The best dreams we have may never, ever come true;
that doesn't mean that some good can't be found in them or come of them.
~ The Troll Witch

I never floated down the Mississippi;
I never got to New England;
I never found true love.

I'll never really have a bar
or a shop or an easy old age
I'll work 'til I'm senile
or drop dead on the spot.

But the dreams that did come true
weren't all that great . . .
I wanted what I was taught I should want:
husband, home, family.
When these became real,
all the beauty and sweetness was gone
and I was alone.

Now . . .

I can be practical--and survive,
Lose hope and optimism,
Grow old in spirit, worn and beaten

taught by life
Or I can dream--and laugh like Sisphysus,
Dare the possibility of happiness.

I choose Twain and Hughes' advice,
With a touch of Emily Dickinson:
"I dwell in possibilities"

And still believe that sometimes
the best dreams, though not real,
Are better than any reality
anyone could imagine.