Hope
I know hope, we know hope right?
It’s somewhat innate,
everyone hopes, we have hopes,
high or low, sometimes we are hope, we lack it, we have it, we need it.
I’m understanding more and more how much of a choice hope actually is.
I have this theory that when we are young hope is easy.
It’s our default because we don't know anything else,
but then hope becomes tainted by failure,
experience,
brokenness,
sin.
When I was young I had hopes of going to an ivy league school,
becoming a doctor,
having a huge family,
a huge house.
I had hopes of having best friends I could always count on,
a wife and children.
I hoped that my family would always be together,
that my parents wouldn't fight,
I would love and be loved.
Hope.
I understood it as a child, it was simple because I expected the best.
Disillusioned.
Growing up only tore away at my hope, because I had to face reality.
I learned to no longer expect the best.
Only Hope for it, expect the worst right?
Is this the reality of my hope?
A cheap two cent word that I tell people, but I don't even believe myself.
Have I appropriated hope?
I say it when it sounds good.
"hope you get well soon"
"Hope you have a nice day"
"Hold on to hope"
"Have hope".
If I’m honest, I wouldn't buy my own bullshit.
I've had a sorry understanding of what hope is.
My hope was simple.
it was never tested
it was the cheap answer
"God's got it"
"It'll all work out".
How was I supposed to tell people to hope,
or have hope myself,
if hope to me was a beaten and bruised abomination of innocence and naivety.
But this is where hope becomes real,
when its hard pressed on every side against the walls of circumstance towering,
inching ever so slightly closer choking out every molecule of oxygen.
Hope is something you fight to keep,
and in turn fights for you.
The single sapling clinging to life in the shadow of splintered oaks and decomposing roots.
Bruises are temporary
Hope comes back stronger with a vengeance,
but you have to choose to heal.
Hope is nimble fingers cradling a cardboard stutter for humanity,
it’s the soft whisper, amen,
the creased smiles of the marginalized gating the bitter wailing of nights without food
it’s your reflection mouthing you belong here,
it’s friends silently sitting,
Connected,
When the sobs are choked by bitter tears.
Hope is no longer a sapling but a redwood,
not an abomination but a prodigal son,
not relying on itself but tied to the hope of others.
I’m a child again. because I know I have a father
Hope is complex, but the choice is simple.
No longer heaping empty phrases because my words drip with memories
yelling at the sky,
fists beating against my chest,
crunched ribs compressed by raw knees.
They echo the words he spoke so clearly and resolute
I’ve always been here says Hope.