Apr 2013
The world says that hope is feeble.
That it's like an ember buried in the ashes of a quenched fire,
Tiny but glowing, fragile in the vastness of midnight.
But I think that hope is truly terrible not because it is easily extinguished, but because it ISN'T.
Hope is no danger, really, if it flares and fades like a little flame snuffed by a stiff breeze, but no.
Hope is underneath.
Hope lingers, long after the wreckage has been gutted.
After everything has been burned to ash,
After every cinder has died out there, and all that is left is a charred skeleton on the scorched ground and a pile of ashes,
After even the blackest ruin is once again cold, hope lives beneath.
An underground blaze ready to rise again at the smallest hint of fuel.
An errant twig, not yet blackened by flames, falls light as a feather, and ignites before it even hits the bed of ashes.
Hope LINGERS underneath, ready to pounce.
It waits.
It sticks around like ****** sticks, and you just can't get rid of the **** stuff, no matter how hard you try.
Hope CANNOT be killed, in some instances.
And people would go on and on, in their ignorance, in praise of such bravery,
Of such a courageous little match struck against the face of the night like a mockery,
But it's just not true.
The way a fire lives on beneath the ground of the places it has recently seared and withered
So that everything must be drenched before it is at all safe to step nearby,
Hope sinks below the ruins of the soul and burns slow and white hot.
Embers are not feeble, they are the hottest part of the fire,
They bite the deepest and they hold on with barbs beneath the skin, waiting.
Hope is supposed to be a pleasant word, full of righteousness and pride and purity.
But that's not what hope IS, only what we intended it to be.
What we wish it was.
Hope is a human concept, and as with all human concepts, it was created in perfection and evolved
Like a virus, took on a life of its own,
And became something altogether different and more menacing than it was ever meant to be.
Hope can keep you going, or it can slowly cook you.
It can sustain you, or poison you, for an entire lifetime.
Depends, you see, on just what it is you're hoping for.
Hope for a brave impossibility, and it's grand, yes!
Hope for a deceased dream, a buried love, a second chance, and, darling...
Hope kills.
That it's like an ember buried in the ashes of a quenched fire,
Tiny but glowing, fragile in the vastness of midnight.
But I think that hope is truly terrible not because it is easily extinguished, but because it ISN'T.
Hope is no danger, really, if it flares and fades like a little flame snuffed by a stiff breeze, but no.
Hope is underneath.
Hope lingers, long after the wreckage has been gutted.
After everything has been burned to ash,
After every cinder has died out there, and all that is left is a charred skeleton on the scorched ground and a pile of ashes,
After even the blackest ruin is once again cold, hope lives beneath.
An underground blaze ready to rise again at the smallest hint of fuel.
An errant twig, not yet blackened by flames, falls light as a feather, and ignites before it even hits the bed of ashes.
Hope LINGERS underneath, ready to pounce.
It waits.
It sticks around like ****** sticks, and you just can't get rid of the **** stuff, no matter how hard you try.
Hope CANNOT be killed, in some instances.
And people would go on and on, in their ignorance, in praise of such bravery,
Of such a courageous little match struck against the face of the night like a mockery,
But it's just not true.
The way a fire lives on beneath the ground of the places it has recently seared and withered
So that everything must be drenched before it is at all safe to step nearby,
Hope sinks below the ruins of the soul and burns slow and white hot.
Embers are not feeble, they are the hottest part of the fire,
They bite the deepest and they hold on with barbs beneath the skin, waiting.
Hope is supposed to be a pleasant word, full of righteousness and pride and purity.
But that's not what hope IS, only what we intended it to be.
What we wish it was.
Hope is a human concept, and as with all human concepts, it was created in perfection and evolved
Like a virus, took on a life of its own,
And became something altogether different and more menacing than it was ever meant to be.
Hope can keep you going, or it can slowly cook you.
It can sustain you, or poison you, for an entire lifetime.
Depends, you see, on just what it is you're hoping for.
Hope for a brave impossibility, and it's grand, yes!
Hope for a deceased dream, a buried love, a second chance, and, darling...
Hope kills.
