Hope - In A World Blinded By Darkness

 

   “I feel all shadows of the universe multiplied deep inside my skin.” – Virginia Wolfe

   We stopped checking for monsters,

when we realized that knowing they were there-

wouldn't make them go away.

We closed our eyes,

and made pretend,

that there was no point to screaming in vain.

We did it, to slow the pounding of our hearts;

to stop the tears.

We lied to ourselves.

    And said that there was nothing there.

    Hope, is such a heavy word. It is layered in false promises, empty walkways, abandoned streets, and desolate faces. It's a pretense of reality, an expectation waiting to be broken. Yet, it is this same explosion of feeling which keeps us going. Keeps us getting to our feet in the morning, hiding away our pains and fears. It keeps us from giving up despite the unconquerable odds of this world.

    Recently, I was told of the suicide of someone I had met quite a long time ago. To be honest, I don't even remember his face. I don't remember who he was, or where he wanted to go with life. He was the same age as me, and in the same class as I for a short time. The concept that a person I've physically met, is now no more than a memory, is like an abrupt slap to my face.

   I was listening to one of my top favorite bands, the Twenty One Pilots, when a particular phrase really stuck out to me.

"The only difference between life and dying
Is one is trying"

   The boy I met so long ago, lost what was most important to him. He lost the ability to believe that things would ever get better. He stopped trying, because he no longer held onto the ability to hope in a future where he could be happy. 

   I don't understand why some people seem to be able to handle living as easily as one might breathe. Because for the rest of us, it's not that easy. We learn to build our lives at the bottom of a deep hole, constantly living in a perpetual darkness. It is here, that we subconsciously understand that without hope, we will falter, and crumble into the ashen dust that rains upon us. It's not a cake walk, trying to find the will to face another day, another struggle. Neither is it a responsibility to be taken lightly.

   

Frodo Baggins: I can't do this Sam.
Sam Gamgee: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

   This quote is what's held me up for so long, through howling wind and pouring rain. It has become one of the echos of my soul, the rope to hold onto when nothing else seems to be standing still. It is the idea that there is something worth fighting for. That there is hope in a world overburdened with blinding darkness.
   I wish I could have spoken to that boy from so long ago. I wish I could have held his hand and given him one last chance. I wish I could have been the eyes that held his gaze, and the heart which heard his tears.
   Yet, I was not.
   I was only the empty ears which heard his death.
   and it is that, understanding a pain so heavy and consuming,
   a pain which he must have felt alone in holding,
   that breaks my heart.
   It breaks my heart because it could have been me,
   but it was him.
   and I'm still trying.