My Dream

                          ~George's View~

I had once thought that everything would be all right

That we would make it through, that our lives would be filled

With nothing but happiness and love, Lennie’s and mine

I did not know that I would have to pull the trigger that would kill him

Crushing both his and my dreams of living a perfect, planned-out life

In the process taking away a light that was never mine, but decided

By some cruel fate that, that I was the one to snatch away

The purest soul in existence, one that could never be compared

The one who could never find fault in the world

Who had only wanted to live on a farm full of rabbits

But had instead faced the wrath of an egotistic son

Who constantly mocked and bullied him because of spite

Spite because Lennie had been tall and he had been short

Spite because Lennie had been hesitant and unwilling

Unwilling to speak for fear of causing anybody trouble

Who had been so afraid to look him in the eyes

A man who had been out for him from the very start

But that is the American Dream’s fallacy! It killed my only friend

The only one I had ever really cared about, even after I constantly

Had to berate him for the odd, worrisome actions that meant no harm

My only chance at a life worth living, gone the second I lifted the gun

And pointed it at Lennie’s head, convinced I would be saving him

And now that I’ve saved him, the question is… who will save me?

Of those whom I had glanced upon with superiority, I –

I am now one of them, forced to walk a different trail

For I have long lost the path to which called me

Called me down the road, the passageway to my only utopia

But now it is gone and why oh why did my dream have to be

Crushed, crushed with no mercy upon the blooming ground?

Beside the ashes in which we had first started our journey

To the climax of where we had secretly planned and cultivated

The setting of our ideal home, the home in which we would belong to,

To us and only us! How were we to know that all along

What our hearts had been telling us so earnestly was simply

Just a lie – a lie and nothing more?

That no one can become something that destiny has not bestowed

At birth, that one can only subsist on their innate talents

That there really is no underdog, no one-in-a-million chance

To overcome the weaknesses that have been put into our person?

We worked so hard, we tried so futilely to make a life

A life for which we could turn to others and brandish,

Telling them of a life in which we had once lived

Where we had been the poor, weak underdogs of the day

And had risen to where no one thought possible

They would scoff and laugh; it could only be a joke!

That two ranch hands could ever become two leaders

Of a decent-sized farm? It could be true! We would -

We would tell them everything, of how we had worked

Together and not apart; that our lives had, from the start

Been different from most farm hands, and how we had never -

Never given up, even when people shoved us to the ground

And told us, “You’ll never be nothin’. You’re justa farm hand,

And nothing more. You’ll always work under me.”

But that can never happen now, because the one

The one who gave me my dream, the one who loved me

And was so caring and nearly drowned in a river just

Because I told him to, he’s dead, killed by my own hand.

The American Dream we nurtured in the end was our undoing

And it yielded a lesson I will never forget.