Pre

Happy Birthday!  they laugh, and the gifts are old running shoes wrapped in fancy papers. We eat lamb, everything from the garden, and she brought the wine she just bottled in California. Life doesn't seem so rough in poverty when it looks like this. Your skin has turned so brown today, and you ran up the mountainside until no oxygen was left in your lungs. Your father asks what your biggest dream is and you narrowly avoid the answer. The stars shine brighter out here; the crickets sing louder. But you miss New York and know that better things are to come.

Because the truth is,
chasing the dream,
is worth more
than knowing what it is
to live it.