By: Hannah Zhang

When I grow up, I will live in a dream, where there’s nothing anywhere, and I get to hang out with people that never existed. I’ll reach the end of the world, where I get to be anywhere but here. I’ll run through a daisy meadow with a lily in my hand, and once I reach the edge, I’ll plant it there. I’ll fight monsters one day and be one the next. I’ll do anything I want, because this is my domain, my ideas, my dream.
I’ll live with people who don’t exist. I’ll fight for justice with them, fight against justice with them, I’ll do anything I want with them, but they’ll fade away, because they don’t exist.

They are just a fragment of my imagination, and perhaps I am too.

I’ll act like a normal adult, but I’ll always pretend I’m 7, because growing up is too harsh. No one should ever have to grow up, because being a grown up means being in a reality, and no one wants to be in a reality.

I’ll run off the edge of the world, because I don’t want to see the people who can thrive in such a reality, when I myself have failed. I’ll look for a soft place to fall, but then I will remember that this is my dream, my world, and that I can fly. Then I’ll soar higher than any eagle or hawk has ever gone, and tell myself again that reality doesn’t exist.

I’ll continue to escape this horrid reality. But I’ll keep looking for a soft place to fall, because I know that one day I will no longer fly in these light pink skies, that I’ll fall like a fallen angel, that I’ll fall harder the longer I stay in these ethereal heavens.

I’ll encounter many terrible things on the ground, if I ever come down. When I do, I’ll be afraid, and I’ll soar higher than ever, where my happiness awaits me. I’ll hide away in that daisy meadow, and admire the lily I planted there.

My kingdom will come crashing down, because it was built on a hill made of sand. I came crashing down too, and perhaps for the better, for I could never stand to see such a beautiful dream end.
When I grow up, I will rebuild that dream, this time on solid asphalt. I will fly high in the sky where I belong, looking down on this dream, because the sun will never set on my domain.

And when I grow up I wouldn’t have really grown up, because that is just a facade, and I will live in my fantasy forever.