The Soldier And The Poet

Chapter 3

Was it worth it?

Was it worth it, those few years of happiness?

Was it worth the pain he went through now?

He wished he could say yes. Wished he could say that anything he went through right now was dampened by the memories of a happier time.

But he couldn't.

That would be lying.

"Don't lie," his mother (his real, biological mother) had told him, her green eyes shimmering in the sunlight.

"Yes, mama," he'd said .

His mother was nearly identical to Dream, with pale brown hair and vivid green eyes.

Dream couldn't remember much about her, but he remembered that she'd sing to him at night.

His uncle had had violet eyes and choppy black hair. He'd taught Dream how to hold a knife and had gone fishing with him every weekend.

Dream remembered the day they found his uncle's body, laying on the sidewalk, blood seeping into the nearby grass.

He'd been killed by the police, all because he was darker-skinned than Dream and his mother.

"But why mama? Aren't the police supposed to protect us?" Said Dream.

"Some of the police think that people like your uncle, who have darker skin, are less human than we are," his mother had replied.

"But that's not true!" Dream had protested. "Every person's life is worth the same, no matter the skin color!"

"Well, some of the police don't know that, Clay," his mother had said.

That was the first of many funerals Dream would go to.

He watched as they buried his uncle; the man who'd helped raise him, the man who'd encouraged his dreams, who'd always been there for him.

How dare they say that you aren't human, he thought. How dare they judge you without knowing you. Fuck them for taking you from us.

That was the day he'd lost faith in any form of military.

He was thirteen when his world turned upside down.

There had been a peaceful protest in the main square, protesting police brutality, and his mother had gone. She'd said that she'd be back by dinnertime.

But she didn't come back.

She was fine, Dream had told himself. She can't die. She will be fine.

But when she wasn't back by ten that night, he set off to find her.

He'd found her lying on the side of the road, blood gushing out of several gunshots.

"Mom!" He'd screamed, running to her side, nearly slipping on her blood.

She blinked open her eyes, which were dull like the algae in the neighborhood pond.

"Clay," she'd whispered.

"Mom," he'd choked out, tears running down his freckled face.

She'd smiled faintly. "Don't give up on your dreams, okay? Stick with them even if the whole world is telling you no. "

"Don't leave me," he sobbed. "I don't need any dreams, I just need you!"

She'd weakly brushed his face with a blood-stained hand. "And smile, my little one. Smile for me, okay?"