Life is untidy. Magical. Obscene.
Hope is the hymn,
abiding with us as we wade through the debris.
Is hope what it takes to be the light on dark days?
Is hope what it takes to remain aware but not consumed?
Generation after generation,
when good news becomes too uncommon,
anticipation for something better gets buried in shallow graves.
When we know we are tired of the loss of autonomy,
but dying to live through the dystopian season—slipping into view;
when we believe that every plan is futile
and we are so sure we hate everyone and everything—
what else can we do?
We dig through the dirt with our hands,
pour our beating hearts back into this battered land.
We reach for hope to revolutionise our minds.
Sometimes, it is the only thing tethering us to this life.
Sometimes, it is the only way we continue to breathe—
when we feel so wretched, catastrophe after catastrophe.
If tomorrow comes,
we will run, climb, fly.
Take huge strides,
then fall over and play dead to the world again—for a while.
Catch a fire and catch our breaths.
Left to our own devices,
would we dream our lives away?
The Universe is still working on us.
We are galaxies still taking shape.
Reality is filtered.
Propaganda is a weapon formed to hold us down,
waging psychological warfare on our humanity somehow.
Being human is exhausting.
Being human is to be inefficient for many days and years of our lives.
Closing the gap between knowing better and doing better,
can take up one’s whole lifetime.
Hope is the hymn,
a hymn we don’t always want to hear —
when vengeance is the lullaby that rocks us to sleep.
Hope is the hymn,
the mercy when we aren’t afforded grace,
the song that calls us on when trauma snatches the breaths from our lungs.
Hope is the hymn,
when we lose our way and endlessly ruminate,
failing forward with cynical optimism
rejecting the next rejection,
gathering pieces of broken spirits.
Hope is contrarian.
It shows no respect for logic or popular opinion.
Pushing back against the tides
and the oceans welling in our eyes.
Hope is the seductive rebellion.
Hope is a longing of a different kind.
This is the age where discernment and suspicious minds collide.
If existence insists that we walk the thin line between triumph and disaster,
we need only treat them as one and the same.
Hope is the suspension bridge engulfed in flames—
we cross to find our way.
If we let it lead, we know,
despair is one look down or just a breath away.
The fires this time burn everywhere.
Yet, hope is still the dare.
Within the disquiet,
there is provocation to glance beyond the sky and into infinity.
Will we be star-struck?
There is no doubt.
But, the candyfloss effect of moments—
soon fades out.
What lingers?
What we know, we know too well.
Our participation—
shapes our heaven or hell.
The world remains bittersweet.
Hope hints at the beginnings of possibility.
The rest—
is up to you and me.
Life is untidy. Magical. Obscene.
We waste hope on hopeless things.
Painting: Source
