Illustration by John Leech
I want to stay poor forever.
“You’re poor enough.”
I want to be selfless.
“Much good it has ever done you.”
I want to dream of people that meant something.
“Look upon me!”
I want to spin a web of truths.
“I won’t believe it.”
I want to escape forces of habit.
“These are but shadows of the things that have been.”
I want to fall asleep in the bed of my childhood.
“Ask me who I was.”
I want to force time to be inconsequential.
“It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very
little.”
I want to believe in more than I do.
“You don’t believe in me.”
I want to trust that I will die happy.
“May nothing you dismay!”
I want to knock on a strangers' door and be invited in.
“As if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave.”
I want to breathe the air from twenty other countries.
“I don’t mind going if a lunch is provided,”
I want to rebuild those who matter.
“You were always a good friend to me.”
I want the father of my children to be an amazing man.
“Because I fell in love.”
I want to be contented by the sound of wind.
“You recollect the way?”
I want to grow my mind like a weed.
“Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then?”
I want to accept my inability to ever fully know.
“God knows”
I want to learn to be a duck and allow words to roll off my
back.
“What else can I be, [….] when I live in such a world of
fools as this?”
I want to remember that my days are numbered.
“I am a mortal, and liable to fall.”
I want to expect what I deserve.
“You fear the world too much.”
I want to feel my laughter shake the tips of my toes.
“Here is a new game”
I want to smile in the faces of adversaries.
“What do you want with me?”
I want to be confident in the life that I choose to lead.
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
I want to create good.
“Ghost of the Future!”
I want to create good.
“I know what it is!”
I want to create good.
“Do you believe in me or not?”
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. (2018, March 4). A Christmas Carol (Original First Edition Cover; 1843 Original Illustrations in Color by John Leech). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm
