She Hopes (poem)

Constructed to the song “I’m Closing My Eyes” by Potsu ft Shiloh

Behind my lids I see what “she hopes” for….

It is something unattainable to her at this time but still she presses on. It is something far away but I have no recollection of her hesitating to move forward. It is something that comes at a cost and yet she is always sure to pay it.

I see what it is…. And yet I cannot put my finger on it.

Something that you can taste and smell, but is not tangible. It does not exist in the physical sense. It is something warm and full of love and yet you cannot wrap your arms around it. What are the words that describe what it is that she hopes for?

That thing is something that she unequivocally longs for. The thing that fills her with rapture at just the thought. She pursues it as if her life depends on it and yet she could live all the same without it. Almost as if she could not imagine a life where she was never united with “it”.

That thing she hopes for.

Behind my lids I can see it. It takes no shape and it holds no form and yet my thoughts completely understand. How is it that I can fathom the delight she feels in this thing of hope when I cannot truly perceive it?

If there was purpose behind her movements, I would imagine that this was it. I can see her hands outstretched towards it; what “she hopes” for. She has not been united with her hopes just yet and I can now feel the agony that terrorizes her for every additional step she must take. It grows as her anticipation grows. It increases as her obstacles increase. It takes shapes of random enemies and spirits that wish to keep her away from her “hopes”.

Parents, old friends, past relationships.

Loneliness, defeat, sadness, anxiety, fear.

Hardship, exhaustion, settlement.

The list goes on. They are hoping that she will fall into their traps. They are hoping to seduce her with alternative routes that stray far from her hopes. Those hopes that are so far out of reach. They are hoping that she will prostitute her achievements for something that is not quite what “she hopes” for but still is “not so bad”. They hope but she never gives in. She never gives up. She never stops. No, she never does.

Why doesn’t she ever stop? What is it that moves her towards her “hopes”? Maybe it is because her only other option is failure. Maybe because she has everything to lose. Maybe because someone out there…somewhere…. Is counting on her to make it.

Maybe that someone out there counting on here is me.

Can she feel me here, cheering her on? Can she hear my cries of joy at every victorious battle she comes out of? Can she sense my anxiety for every obstacle that comes to stand in her way? Does she know that I am here, waiting on her to cross the finish line?

I wonder how much of me is getting through to her. “She” who truly does hope for thing unrecognizable thing that could ultimately change her life. This victory that she pursues that could ultimately change my life. This achievement that could ultimately change the lives of many.

The lives of many are waiting on you, “She who hopes”.

As she continues to press on I begin to imagine the day that she gets there, to her hope. I imagine cherry blossoms raining down from the sky all around her as she brings it in close to her heart. I imagine her smiling in a way that cannot be described in words. It is a smile that only God could create for that one moment. It is one that is being saved for the day “she” who “hopes” has completed her purpose and has blasted her light of victory across the globe.

Her light is blinding. Her light is like the sun, visible to everyone across the globe. It reaches into the deepest crevices and cracks of the Earth and pulls out those who had fallen in and had given up on the idea of climbing back out. It reaches past the highest and farthest of areas of space, where people have been drifting for years of regret. It grabs hold of their hearts….. of their minds…. And drops an anchor back onto the land from whence they were lost.

“It’s okay, you know? To look at her…” she whispers to me.

If I had to guess, I would say that she was already well on her way to growing that light of hers. It cannot be that she would just glow so beautifully one specific day. Maybe she was always glowing and all this time my eyes had just been adjusting to the intensity. Maybe her glow was just getting brighter over the years of my watching her and I never noticed. Much like a mother who raises a child and rarely notices the subtle details that change about them over the years as they grow. They were babes one day, and adults the next.

“What if I am disappointed by the real her?” I say to her.

I know that this is not reality. This is only my imagination. That’s because all this time, I have had my eyes closed, watching her chase after her “hopes”. But one of these days, her “hopes” will have to leave the quotation marks behind.

That’s because she is me. And there is nothing imaginary about the things that I hope for. My hopes are her hopes, and that is why I can feel what she feels. That is why I know the agony she feels every time she must take another step forward.

That is why I can understand what “she” hopes for without actually perceiving it.

And today I am hoping for something greater than my imagination.

But first, I have to open my eyes.