By: Lynn White

We were the golden people then,
flying high above the rest,
shimmering like the arrogant angels
we saw playing way above the clouds.
We could almost touch them
with our arms outstretched
as we danced our way through
a youth of endless possibilities.

But the grey people were unimpressed.
They had no wish to touch the angels,
or reach the stars, even if they could.
They looked down to us, not up.
Laughed and shook their heads
at our strangeness and waited
for our dreams to fracture as theirs had done.
We did not hear the soundtrack of their voices.
Did not see their once golden dreams split open
and rot away, consuming them in the decay.

Now we have become grey like the rest, tarnished
and knowing that we were not so golden, even then.
Just practicing for a life that would dull our shine
as our dreams remained dreams.
Dreams which became decayed imaginings
growing grey and dusty with time and fading.
Like them, we were consumed in the rot of our dreams
as drabness reclaimed us and the angels let us fall.