Poem about unfulfilled dreams

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?

I love this poem, a warning that a dream ignored or not realised leads internal emptiness, sadness and even uncontrolled anger. However, Hughes wrote this is the 1950s and probably intended for the poem to focus on the oppression of dreams of African Americans at that time.