Scholastic Spotlight: Olivia Data

Dream

Gold Key

Author: Olivia Data

8^th Grade

Educator: David St. Peter

Bismarck

The sun flooded down

In a haze of golden light

That was broken by the treetops

With their overwhelming height

And so the light flew into fragments

Landing on the forest floor

And it cast the trees around it

As if in a book of lore

All of time seemed to stop

In the intertwining gold

In the dazzle and the sparkle

Cast upon the marigolds

That were hidden in the trees

In their nets of gnarled roots

Forming webs of woven majesty

Each with a different route

And the music of the silence

And the stillness of the woods

Spun a thread of serendipity

Around me where I stood

The euphoria of concord

Resonated in my soul

But things only last forever

Before time takes its toll

I heard the woods call out to me

I felt it in my heart

As the branches seemed to beckon me

Into their web of art

I wished that I could follow

But a voice within my head

Begged, Don’t answer, never answer

So I turned away instead

I knew not what came over me

I had nothing to hide

And yet my instinct tore me

From the calling of the pines

And as I navigated further

From the golden-shining glade

My heartbeat seemed to settle

But my fear did not quite fade

For the trail I took to get here

Should continue through the first

Not wind back through the forest

In a disconcerting blur

And shouldn’t it still be daytime

And if so, where is the light

For the gold’s faded to silver

And the afternoon to night

And with nighttime comes the nightmares

That in daylight seemed so faint

And with darkness comes a canvas

Onto which the nightmares paint

I knew trees couldn’t hurt me,

But I couldn’t shake the dread

That lurked in every shadow

In the corners of my head

Were there footsteps right behind me

Or just tricks played by my mind

Panic writhed inside my stomach

As tree branches intertwined

And I couldn’t shake the feeling

That someone was watching me

But when I turned ‘round to confront them,

There was no one I could see

But once I glanced behind me,

I could not quite seem to stop

I twitched at every rustle

Like a skittish, watchful hawk

Every split twig was a gunshot;

All the trees were silhouettes

Of the figures from my nightmares

And of dark, foreboding threats

The moonlight was no comfort

When it glistened on the leaves,

Spinning threads of silver gossamer

Around the silver trees

And the moonbeams seemed to alter

What I knew was really there

‘Till I was sprinting through a wonderland

Of all my greatest fears

My feet pounded the forest floor

And I began to quake

Did something sleep beneath the dirt?

I prayed it wouldn’t wake

Though I hurtled through the forest,

My fears were close behind

And it soon dawned upon me

I could neither run nor hide

For it will catch up to all of us;

Our bleak and bitter end

Yet this truth won’t stop our fleeing

From the monsters in our heads

Though the dark may prove us cowards

And our hopes aren’t what they seem,

For every silver nightmare

There comes a golden dream