hope coiled like a serpent around my neck
suffocating, like the smoke that fell from your fire,
burning away everything that stood here

but I kneel in the blackened soil
and rub charcoal and ash in the webbing
between my fingers—where yours once rested

appeased, she slackens, falling from my shoulders
as though dead, before slithering into the night,
beckoning—to follow her farther into the wasteland

I find my footsteps falling in her path
though she asks only one thing of me—to believe
to ration my reason, starve off my doubt

I protest with silence, but hope is a dangerous thing,
and knows that despite her, I will always return—
and never with a sword