No pessimist skies  
When the sun doesn't rise
Can reign my parades
Or dwarf me in size
With their cynical shades
On my evergreen trees
I'm a jack of all trades
I'm the uplifting breeze
And my ace of spades
Is the heart on your sleeves
So drop the charades
And come jump in my leaves

For life is my game
And my pieces in pain
So I play to win
For all one and the same
And all of you cheaters
Remember the name
For I raise the stakes
From the ones that you claim
All ownership over
The shattered-glass frame

When broken lie dreams
All split at the seems
We condemn our ambitions
To bite all the bullets
Of human conditions
And sentence to death
My master tactician  
Who ceases to fire
In wars of attrition
For I am the peace treaty's final revision

Ignition flames in your engines of trust
In a world made of more than machine cogs to rust
I could be the pebble
That ripples through time
Transforming you into
An optimist prime
I could be the cure
To the most common cold
A lonely lost lover's hands
Longing to hold

Awaiting the day you embrace me again
When the light in the tunnel is distant and dim
When everything falls I'll be there at the end
Since from the beginning
I've been by your side
You took your first steps
With me in your stride
Of your deepest secrets
In me you'd confide
Then I let you drown me
In oceans you've cried
Yet still I resurface
And rise like the tide
At your emptiest depths
I will fill you with pride
And be the surfboard
On these waves that you ride

Though we loosen our ties
When you tighten the rope
And you don't think of me
When you're penning the note
I still send you letters
In sealed envelopes
If you would but open
The ones that I wrote
And read that each one is signed
    
                                                       Your old friend,
                                                                ­        *Hope