when all seems lost

Complete darkness

There is something unsettling about that turn of phrase

just like the feeling I get, here in the thick of it.

But to call it complete is somehow… incomplete

One time a long, long time ago

A voice called out into the incomplete

Let there be light.

And there was… light.

Yet somehow I find myself (or I guess I can say I lost myself)

here. In the incomplete abyss of darkness.

Quick! Find an exit, a door, a hatch!

Feel around and maybe —

Maybe there’s a hidden door, a crack in the wall,

something!      A way to escape the darkness

flee from the incomplete.

I can’t. get. out. stifled. oppressed.

rotting.

alone.

but.

not.

I am in the darkness, and the darkness is full.

Packed to the brim with failures — with those who have been defeated and broken by life,

with those who are tired and haggard and finished.

Dead.

Dead men.

Dead hearts.

Dead dreams.

Dead even before death.

Dead even more after death.

(sigh)

So here I am, waiting.

Incomplete in between

between death and life

between dreaming and waking

between sorrow and joy

between doubt and faith

between old and new

between heartbreak and love

between losing and finding

between promise and fulfillment

What is here

in the space between?

A word.

A whisper.

(Barely) a whisper.

hope

I don’t know where it came from. Well, maybe I do.

but not really.

It’s faint, but persistent. And the whispered word echoes.

hope… hope… hope… hope

whispered by a voice the universe remember

from the deepest part of its existence

a voice of One who once called into the dark

the voice that spoke brilliance into being

a voice I remember in my dreams

in dreams within my dreams

the voice my heart recognizes even when my mind has long forgotten

hope… hope… hope

that this grave isn’t the end — a comma maybe, or semicolon — but not a stop.

never a stop.

merely a pause, bated breath.

waiting for

a stone rolled.

lights.

and a familiar voice

calling,

“Child, step out of your grave!”