I like the bitter taste of over-steeped tea and the light smell of burning that comes through the window from the train tracks behind the building. Morning light filters in and a dull glow hits the edges and curves. I am in a sepia mood. Acrid leafy tastes linger at the back of my throat and I am sad and I am wistful and I am here.

Birdsong comes in with the wailing of sirens and sounds of a brimming and overflowing cup of life. I am… I am a drop in the bucket. I swell and tremble before breaking and falling. The whisper of my breath can catch in a moment – a fluctuation between panic and calm. A restless mind always wanders, always hungers.

I slide and glide through a time I didn’t choose, in a body that’s been used by the machine and spat out to be wrapped up and cared for by the child of my mind. A chaos of hate surrounds the edges of this world and I cling to a piece of my peace.

I don’t swim or walk, but I crawl. Inching ever forward to the shreds of shedding the infantilism of a broken body, a nervous system nervous disregulation. A circle and a cycle brings the time back around and I am young and I am old and I am all the times and none. I remember a memory of a time that is now.

Hope is hard.

Bitter tastes and salted wounds and hard hearts are a comfort that treads paths to nowhere.

Hope is HARD.

The escape to a deliciously warm respite within the glut of a self satisfied whataboutism, like a mirage in a burnt landscape of dreams. The lake of self satisfaction beacons and calls us to lay down our burdens. Come die here.

HOPE IS HARD. Lifting the weight, grinding the gear turned on a heavy crank with few rewards.

But life moves through it.