Today, my professor walked out,
then back into the classroom
When I was young, excitement embodied my soul
like an embellished Christmas tree of happiness
At that age, I would have created an eminent fabrication,
such as walking back into the room
eventuates a new beginning
or maybe she was melancholy, and walking in
and out of a room eradicates her unpleasant mood,
like when you move the furniture around your house,
in order to adjust a grim, atmospheric emotion

This would have been joyfully amusing when I was young
Thoughts cascaded from my head and blossoming heart
as easy as a raindrop breaking apart
when slamming the ground
this was a lifetime ago
before He jumped off the father train
before I spent all free time vacuuming up
the pieces of mom’s fragmentized heart
now, here I am, nineteen years old
executing endless labor to
keep our house from running away
attempting the role of a second mother
to a younger, disconsolate girl
repeating the same thing every day,
I watch time go by faster than the petals fall off roses

when I was young I would have written this poem
with exorbitant talent
and an eagerness that encompassed the room
with remarkable vibrancy
but I am nineteen now, sometimes I’m fifty
and all I can see, is that my professor walked out,
then back into the classroom

Hope to be...a hopeless romantic...hoping for the best...when all hope is lost.

Hope, I’ve always maintained, is like waiting with enthusiasm for something that is never going to happen. Such dedication!

And then I second-guessed myself.

Does it matter if what is hoped for eventuates or remains perpetually elusive? Is the practice of hope an event in itself; the lift in the shoulders, the spring in the step, the intangible high which gets us through? Maybe, that’s what hope is, no more or less than that. A survival mechanism of the highest order. An antidote to despair and disappointment which resuscitates the spirit, revitalises our connection to the world we live in, and inspires our momentum forward.

Hope is a self-generated experience which, with a select few thoughts or words, we can create for our own or for another’s benefit at any time and under any circumstances, irrespective of what is gained or lost in actuality. Granted, our individual perspective and personal biography directs our ability to conjure this sweet synaptic syntax, but with practice it can be ours for the taking.

Hope allies itself with truth and makes a friend of acceptance. It recognises what is possible and what is not. Hope has no expiry date but what we hope for does, and as such, hopes can be re-expressed, discarded, or adjusted in concert with our emotional evolution. Only with the advantage of hindsight can we declare a hope false or lost, and so often this declaration is made by an observer rather than the affected party.

Hope will always precede the outcome to which it is applied, a little like predicting the future, and therein lies the rub. As far as I’m concerned, there is no such thing as false hope, only that which is falsely applied. It is up to us to discern the difference.