I've been thinking...
                                wondering...
                                                    ­hoping...
But there is no hope left.
Once, I knew hope,
Like the friend who holds you up
But always falls asleep in the middle of your longest nights.
Those nights with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Yet, there is hope; this is the paradox.
There is hope, but what I need now is not.

Because,
As life works, the right things make themselves known at the wrong times,
And the wrong, destructive things make their way into the most beautiful times.

And now, I should be devoting my time to something worthwhile.
But, I sit, cross-legged on the floor,
My right earphone in my left ear because I need it that way.
I used to hear with both ears, as you do.
Not anymore.

I'm thinking about you.
Wondering and hoping things about you.
I tried to lay down everything for you,
But you didn't know it.
You don't know the sting this leaves in my heart when we talk long into the nights.
Nobody knows the ache I feel when they're all beaming.
I beam too, so that they don't know.
I need it this way.

Maybe I react too easily.
Maybe my heart is too tender.
Maybe, I say, but I know nothing.

Nothing but that this too shall pass.

Above all, there is still
                                       *Hope.