There’s a lump in your throat and the feeling in the pit of your stomach that just pulling at you, and you know it’s going to be a long year. If only…. If only… you wish…
One could go back in time. Back to when everything was going to be okay. When boys didn’t break hearts and create messes. They were just icky and a simple cootie shot could cure everything. When homework only took two minutes and the thought of writing a paper didn’t cause you to hyperventilate because it is this one paper that will make or break your college application. When cancer was just a word that adults whispered. When you repeated it, it tasted funny on your tongue like sour milk and too much cotton candy. So you stopped saying it, because no one likes that taste. But still people whisper. Words that you don’t want to hear. Chemo, hair loss, wig, depression, rape, suicide, war, famine. So finally, you stopped listening. Covered your ears and refused to hear anything and sang LALALALA at the top of your lungs. Because, hey, if you didn’t hear it, it couldn’t be happening. Right? Of course right. Not listening made everything better. And then, curious, you opened your ears again. It was a stupid idea. One of the ones that you’ll regret forever. Words assaulted you. Words and colors: too bright and loud and painful for you to comprehend. Death, dying, destruction of everyone around and nothing anyone could do to stop it. But you couldn’t relax back into the blessed silence of unknowing again, because you needed to know everything. Everything and nothing at the same time. A dark, hopeless place where despair rules and hope hides underneath everything else, just struggling to breathe a little bit. After all, it was the one thing left in Pandora’s Box. Not enough to go around and feed the hungers of the world, but a little left for me to grab and keep close at night. Hope is a funny word. Only four letters yet carrying so much weight. For we cannot leave out hope. In the end, it’s the only thing that we have left.