The boy I was, looking earnestly into the camera,
could not have known his passion would melt,
after a thousand defeats, into painful indifference.
That hopeful lad, barely in his twenties, knew nothing
of failure. He believed intellect could take him
anywhere he wanted to go. His enthusiasm had not yet
been dulled by the sad scrape of detached cynicism.
Tears well up when I look at that boy, knowing what
I know about his dreams, dashed against the real
world; the world nobody explained to him, for fear
of breaking his heart, before he had a chance to try
to change it. He was a dreamer, that boy; when I see
one like him, I want to warn him about the nightmare
that’s coming, but I can’t bear to break his heart.
