This poem captures the crushing weight of expectation felt by a child of immigrants. The speaker’s life was prescribed from birth: “doctor, engineer, or lawyer”. This was the path to honor the parents who “crossed oceans” so their child might not just survive, but thrive.
The climax is a devastating round of rejections from the “eight ball” of Ivy League schools. The resulting rejection is not just personal failure, but a “quiet goodbye” to the dreams and sacrifices of an entire family. The voice finds momentary defiance but ends on the raw pain of being “the failure they never expected”.
- But here it lies, this thin reply,
- an unspoken smirk, a quiet goodbye.
- A sealed rejection, not just for me,
- but for every dream they dared to see.