hope is a war

I’m covered in my own blood.

Caught in a battle

I never wanted to fight. 

Cut by shards

Of shattered assumptions. 

But hope is not peace.

Hope is a war,

A fight that the enemy

Has not yet won.

It’s one more stand and then another,

One more call for aid.

And hope is not complete. 

Hope is broken stained glass,

A choice to see a world

No longer hidden from me.

A world uncertain,

But home.

So welcome, blood,

My sign of life.

Welcome, war,

I choose to fight.

Welcome, broken,

There’s more beyond.

And it speaks to me

Of hope.

--- 

I woke up one night a few months ago with blood all over me. It was just a bloody nose but of course I had to jump up and race into the bathroom, barely able to see from the bright light, barely able to think through my sleepy, foggy mind. It was a strange experience to wake up like that, and I started the first two lines the next morning. The rest of it came together in the last few weeks, slowly. I never thought I would equate hope with war - my favorite idea with my least favorite. But perhaps that captures the tension of life, tension we must face if we are to truly live.