Someone once asked me what hope was.
Hope is that extra dollar someone gives you,
allowing you to but that newspaper to use as a blanket.
The extra plastic bag to cover your feet and keep the water out.
The scraps of food found at the bottom of a trash can.
The quick, quiet death in the calm of the night.

Hope is the misfire of that gun
When it goes off when you don’t think it’s loaded.
It’s the sudden end to this crappie game of charades known as life

Hope is the acceptance from another.
The smile she flashes shyly,

and then scampers away.
The painful feeling you get when you find out they’ve been toying with your heart.

Hope doesn’t have a foothold in my life.
Hope has never had a foothold with me.
From day to night, week to month, the years of my pitiful existence are merely droplets of dew upon the water of lake superior.
It’s lost souls under the surface,

screaming and writhing for a way out.

I told them hope doesn’t exist.
They asked about god.
I laughed shamelessly in their face.