A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
From “Harlem” in “Montage of a Dream Deferred” in Selected Poems of Langston Hughes, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959).

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