hope is a curious thing.
it bubbles, it builds, it bursts.
perhaps at one point
i hoped all the best for you--
for the spiritual peace that is
a good job, all the bills paid,
and something that looks like love in your life.
i never felt hope die,
i didn't notice when it left.

yesterday i wished ill for you,
a hard life and hard circumstances,
a general malaise for your soul.
yesterday i'd have had words for you,
words for this last time i'll see you.
yesterday would have spoken clearly
of all the hurt you have caused me.

today i woke up calm,
do you know what it is to wake up calm
after weeks of hurricanes and sandstorms?
today i woke up soft and sweet
and even looking something like myself.
today i opened my heart,
that secret chest of drawers,
and found all the compartments empty.
today i woke up calm and realized
that there is nothing left in my soul.

but this is not depression,
this is not being tossed up on the rocks,
some sob story for you to read years later.
this is what it is to be calm:
the recognition that love is built,
and when ripped away,
love transfers from our hearts to our memories.
all my hopes for you, they still exist
in the past, are locked up now, unreachable.
my hopes and my pride and my hurts
and all the emotion i ever granted you
is locked up in a higher safe now,
impregnable, and icy to the touch.