Hope

No pessimist skies

When the sun doesn't rise

Can reign my parades

Or dwarf me in size

With their cynical shades

On my evergreen trees

I'm a jack of all trades

I'm the uplifting breeze

And my ace of spades

Is the heart on your sleeves

So drop the charades

And come jump in my leaves

For life is my game

And my pieces in pain

So I play to win

For all one and the same

And all of you cheaters

Remember the name

For I raise the stakes

From the ones that you claim

All ownership over

The shattered-glass frame

When broken lie dreams

All split at the seems

We condemn our ambitions

To bite all the bullets

Of human conditions

And sentence to death

My master tactician

Who ceases to fire

In wars of attrition

For I am the peace treaty's final revision

Ignition flames in your engines of trust

In a world made of more than machine cogs to rust

I could be the pebble

That ripples through time

Transforming you into

An optimist prime

I could be the cure

To the most common cold

A lonely lost lover's hands

Longing to hold

Awaiting the day you embrace me again

When the light in the tunnel is distant and dim

When everything falls I'll be there at the end

Since from the beginning

I've been by your side

You took your first steps

With me in your stride

Of your deepest secrets

In me you'd confide

Then I let you drown me

In oceans you've cried

Yet still I resurface

And rise like the tide

At your emptiest depths

I will fill you with pride

And be the surfboard

On these waves that you ride

Though we loosen our ties

When you tighten the rope

And you don't think of me

When you're penning the note

I still send you letters

In sealed envelopes

If you would but open

The ones that I wrote

And read that each one is signed

Your old friend,

­ *Hope