If you asked me now
To my face
What I would have wished for
Since before birth
While I was still in the womb
To have, and carry
With me to the extinguishing
Of my numbered days
My answer would be such
And I would spit it
Into your face, your throat
And your eyes
So that it burned like hellfire
Into your stomach
I would need you to know
But more importantly remember
Like a scar
On the back of your hand
And a thought piercing your mind

It would be nothing foolish
Though futile nonetheless
I would not ask for a life without pain
Or the riches of the streets
That I awake the dust from
It would be just this

Spare me
Spare me the hopelessness
Let me not even taste it
Like metal in my mouth
And smoke from a dying fire
In my breath

Spare me the hopelessness
The mental end of the rope
The end of the line
The no more track,
We have already come to far
You can turn back
But for what
But
For what
And for who
And why

Just
Spare me the hopelessness

This life tried to take me by the horns
The world tried to lead me by a leash
And I choked
Choked out
On misery and despair
And I lay naked on the ice
With my nails scratching into the frozen ground
Trying to dig my own grave
Still trying to light my existence like a match
Just to feel
Feel something
And have it over take me
But still be unchanged
To taste
But not be consumed

I wanted to live
To wade in the water
To pour my love out
Like a river over the cliffs
And dash myself
With the waterfalls
Over the rocks
Again and again
And again

I would meet you in the stars
And we could dance with the sun
Coaxing her into a rising
To drench the horizon with her light
And the fill the earth with promise

And if you asked me
What would you take from the rest of the world
I would be silent
Fold my hands
Like a prayer in my lap
But my mind she would run
To the back of my teeth
And my voice she would catch
In the hollow of my neck
And what I wouldn't say is that, "I would take,
Take it all,
Ever bit of hope
From east and west and beyond the seas."

Because to fall into this
The tunnel with no light at the end
Is a death
I cannot live out

So spare me
Spare me the hopelessness