"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
They ask at age 3.
I want to be a gardener,
I want to pick my flowers and smile.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
They ask at age 5.
I say I want to be a baker.
I want people to smile when they taste the new cupcakes I've created.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
They ask at age 7.
I want to be an actress.
I want people to laugh as my character's arms flail trying to stay afloat in a rushing river that tries to sweep me away.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
They ask at age 10.
I want to be an art teacher.
I want to teach children to create art that makes them smile. I want them to put smiles on their own faces and see as others admire something they've created.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
They ask at age 15.
I want to be an author.
I want to create characters that mean everything to one person and nothing to one person. A character that can be everything and nothing at the same time.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
They ask at age 18.
"I don't know," I reply.
What do I want to be when I grow up?
I want to be an author.
I want to create something that means the world to me, and becomes someone else's world.
I want to be an art teacher.
I want to teach children to create something that makes them smile. Makes someone else smile.
I want to be an actress.
I want to make people laugh, and cry, and smile at my character who is all too many things at once.
I want to be a baker.
I want people to smile at the taste of freshly baked cookies that have fragments of my heart in it.
I want to be a gardener.
I want to grows flowers and smile.
I want to be everything and nothing at the same time.
So next time you ask me,
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
I'll smile.
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Word count- 348
Published- January 22, 2024
When I was in kindergarten I wrote a poem called "what if i had a garden" it was kinda like this one maybe i'll find it sometime.
