Hope

 

Hope

I thought my hope had died with you Elohim,

when nihilism had reigned supreme.

Every day my hope is disproven,

but instead of shrinking or wavering,

it grows inside of me like a tumour.

 

I hope for the future,

the way my priest had hoped for the rapture,

or for Salvation,

or just to stand facing his fellow man and truly feel seen.

I was too young to tell the difference,

ad orientem Versus populum.

 

Does my hope come from naivety, ignorance?

Is my hope a shield to hide behind when called to action?

A bed time story I read myself, covers pulled up to my chin,

The stupid dream that goodness begets goodness.

 

Is my hope comfort to others?

A candle glowing at the end of a dark corridor, flickering without wind.

Or is it a meal I serve to those who are already full,

one that gets caught in the teeth and comes out past the lips as vomit, ad nauseam.

The stupid dream that evil will be repaid with evil.

 

I whip my back with hope,

I tear my hair out with hope,

for I do not cling onto hope.

Hope clings onto me,

a fool tarred and feathered.

 

Whether my hope is either a temple of God or a habituation of Satan.

The state of hope, whose zeal has grown cold,

who has returned the love of the world.

I say the word until it is nothing more than a sound without meaning,

A sigh of relief cut short by two anxious lips;

‘Hope’

 

Even now I try to write you,

to sculpt letters into your shape.

But they collapse under the weight of themselves,

drooping and pathetic like wet clay,

and where there should be colour-

an abundance of grey.

 

 

 

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