What If?

Illustration by: Sofia Rizkkhalil

What if you create a utopia in your mind?

Free from the constraints of reality, 

Nowhere near as repressed nor confined

By something as consequential as finality.

You don’t even realize what you are doing;

Illusions of something more occupying the time and space of the present

Until it becomes all-consuming, 

And you fail to recognize that it has now turned equally unpleasant.

Because when you open your eyes, 

You’re faced with a stark end to a seemingly perpetual fantasy,

And there’s nothing left to do but improvise, 

Attempting to bridge your reverie with reality.

For what is our world without the notion of progress?

Without getting to plant the seed and watch it grow into fruition,

Without turning the dissatisfaction behind what ifs into inspiration regardless,

Struck by the gravity of life, propelled into living with intention.

As everything seems to spiral down further, 

Morphing into something completely unrecognizable,

You have to move past being a casual observer

To become a person concerned with the achievable. 

The same instinct that pushed you to find solace in the immaterial

Has to fuel you to redress the issues that made you think of the inconceivable.

So you ask yourself:

What if compassion drove humanity?

What if the mechanisms of power were rooted in equity?

What if we would solve world hunger?

Wouldn’t that fill everyone with wonder?

What if we could cure every affliction?

Does it seem like something done only in a work of fiction? 

What if the people we elected were more concerned with eliminating inequality? 

What if we never lost another innocent life to ceaseless brutality? 

Or better yet, what if no one ever needed to fight another war? 

What if the sustainability of our planet wasn’t dismissed and treated as a chore?

What if our differences were cause for celebration?

What if they weren’t used as a means of alienation?

You see, these questions deserve your attention,

An unrivaled, unrelenting level of focus

That flourishes not in some idealistic fabrication, 

But in something concrete, ultimately culminating in your greatest opus.

What if I made the world a better place?