Lake "Dreamland"

Lake Dreamland is the name of the neighborhood where I grew up. There was a time when it held true to its name, but that was long before I was born.

Lake Dreamland was originally meant to be a nature reservation and vacation spot for rich city folk looking for a slice of paradise but the landowner's dream was short-lived when a severe flood hit the area. Following the flood, the owner of the land decided to sell the now-ravaged neighborhood to a chemical plant located nearby. The chemical plant expanded into Lake Dreamland's backyard. Because the neighborhood was so close to the chemical plant, the price of the land went down making it a choice location for impoverished individuals. Over time the land was littered, the lake was polluted, houses were abandoned, and the once beautiful slice of paradise was no more. Now, Lake Dreamland is but a corpse of a dream that has long since passed.

When I was young I would hear stories about how beautiful the place once was. My grandfather told me that the lake used to be crystal clear, so clear you could see straight to the bottom. He said that he and his brothers used to go swimming in it every summer. I found this odd since he had always told me and my siblings to never eat the fish from the lake. He said if we did we would probably grow an extra limb. Now that I'm older, that comment doesn't seem so funny anymore.

I used to spend a lot of time by the lake trying to envision the beautiful scenery I had heard so much about. I never was able to imagine it though. Aside from all the litter and chemical plants that were undoubtedly polluting the neighborhood, there was another type of pollution that ravaged the quaint little neighborhood of Lake Dreamland – heroin.

It wasn't just heroin though. There was a multitude of drugs that floated around the area. You couldn't walk two feet without running into someone who wasn't in their right mind. As this type of sickness goes, the use of drugs bred parents who cared more about their fix than feeding their children, neighbors who would befriend you just to see what they could steal from you, and violence.

Unfortunately, I was a victim of all of these things. My father was one of the worst offenders when it came to drugs and theft. He never hit me though, that was my stepmother. Her drug of choice was alcohol, but I won't get into that right now.

Given my home life, I tried to spend as much time away from the house as I could. I think that may have been another reason why I spent so much time by the lake. I wanted to envision something different from everything I saw daily. It was by the lake that I discovered my passion for poetry and wrote my very first poem at age 13. The name of the poem was "Grave of a Thousand Fireflies" and well, it was horribly written. I was only 13 at the time. But even at 13, I felt like I had already lived a thousand lifetimes and I was desperate for an escape. Poetry became that escape for me.

So, why am I writing all of this right now? Well, I wrote a Haiku recently that was based on my memories of Lake Dreamland, the people, and the lake itself. It's a short snippet of my childhood, something I believe I was trying to communicate in that original poem. I want to improve my poetry writing skills because that is what I want to do with my life. So, even if this Haiku doesn't quite hit the way I want it to, I've decided to post it anyway just in case a more seasoned poet decides to offer some feedback.

In this Haiku I mention fireflies. The fireflies are a representation of a thought I had once while I was standing by the lake. The fireflies to me represent the people in the neighborhood. I vividly remember wondering if any of the addicts in the neighborhood had ever had a dream that drove them –a light if you will. I wondered if the sickness in the area caused them to trap themselves in their surroundings. I don't know the answer to this, but I was always afraid I was going to get stuck there too.

So, here it is:

a grave of fireflies

the lake is dense with algae

smothering out light

Well, anyway. I'm not sure if anyone will read this long story but I just felt like I should share it. It's been years now since I've returned to Lake Dreamland but from what I hear it's only gotten worse since my childhood. Interestingly, I was able to escape but I still find myself thinking about it from time to time. Maybe I never really left after all.