Dare Me to Break

This is a short poem, reflecting on hope. Pause, breathe, then begin. If you can, read it out loud to yourself. May it bring you some comfort in whatever ways you need it.

How do we hold onto hope?


It is fragile.
A creature often paired
with misery,
as if to truly taste the sweet
one must also taste the bitter.


It likes to run, hope does.
Take its sweetness and flee.


It is too delicate for catching back
like some ordinary thing.
Even in small doses,
it is strong.
Palpable, even.


It rises to the surface
in seas of nothingness-
internal storms beware the buoyancy.


If you call to it softly,
or fiercely,
perhaps it will come to you.


It is best paired 
with early morning light.
With long walks 
in beautiful places.
Across tables with friends
who will call for it
when you cannot remember
how to ask for it by name.


The sound of hope might be
the sound of silence.
Might also be the
deafening noise of a newborn baby.


Smells like old pages closing.
Smells like familiar.
Salt water on face,
it tastes like childhood.
And tragedy.


Peers through eyes that have 
seen it all and choose
to look forward anyway.


It is powerful.
Chokes out the deep roots
of despair.
Asks pain for its hand
and holds it quietly.
Moves into a chest
like a small flicker.


Dare me to break,
it says.


JUST DARE ME.


I will not stop.


Its never further than
a thought.
More guttural
than we speak.


Nothing about hope
is cliched.


It reaches out from 
the clenched jaws of life
and says death will not hold me
nor the ones I love.


Nothing here is final.


The final word has been spoken
and because of that
I stand on hope.


It is mine for the claiming.


He is mine for the claiming.


His name is Hope, and He is mine.