That is All 

That is all. 

Hopeless was the soaked highway,

Racing the raindrops down a window with a half-downloaded album,

Glancing at my Mami’s crumpled face, in the sparkling side mirror,

Half her cheek pressed into a lavender phone case,

One jump of my heart, she was mid-laughter,

The next, she wasn’t. She was something else,

A croaking voice, delivering a sentence, a sorry,

And two nephews in the backseat, swallowing the shock,

An awkward lump of a throat, unblinking eyes,

The album kept playing.

I was shocked. That was all. 

Hopeless was the clear sky,

The road trip to turquoise beaches, and small sandalled feet,

Hidden between the creases of book pages, stuck in the whirlpool

That was my what if’s, at the creeping shore,

At all the unseen, 

The search bar blinking back at me with cruelty, my tight exhales,

At results for symptoms and survival rates and the storm we’d be returning to,

The fear, of tripping, of falling, of making it all

Worse, that keeps you sewn shut,

Became me.

I was fear. That was all. 

Hopeless was the knowing,

Over the years, asking my parents where they’d want to go,

When they retire, and being met with a melancholy smile and shimmering eyes,

Because home is still home when you leave, home is still home

When it is corrupted, when it is broken, when it is stolen,

When the veins mapping my skin have bloodlines that trace back to places

I’ve never been, but still find me, and I wonder,

If I can miss a home I never had,

Simply because I was supposed to.

I was mourning. That was all. 

Hopeless was watching.

Watching the world unravel, around me.

Fraying at the seams and then tearing,

Pulled apart by polarization, my surroundings 

A wake of adolescents mourning their futures,

Before they’ve even begun, in a flood of 

Red, and white, and blue

Lips, shut, and shut, and 

Hopeless.

That was the world, for a moment. 

And then it was you, grumbling, 

through sewn lips and shoulder-driven sighs. 

And perhaps, seeing that,

I am meant to give you something happier, now.

deliver you a thing of comfort, and I could.

I am bright with stories of smiles brimming with warmth, 

Hands that fit, entwined with mine,

Of goodness, I’ve seen, that exists

Passed between strangers over and over again,

But this time,

I don’t think I will. Sorry. 

I think I will let you sit.

In this shock, this fear, this mourning, this defeat,

This world. 

And when I hear you grumble,

through sewn lips mirroring mine and constant shoulder-driven sighs. 

I will simply ask you this.

If hopeless is the world,

Defined by an ending, rueful with active destruction,

Will you go down silently?

Bow, from the curtain of existence

With nothing but an unsaid tale of woe,

Or will you stare into that abyss, the looming trepidation of failure,

That hopelessness,

And fight for it, anyway? 

You will breathe again, in time, we all will, 

So when you are beating once more,

Will you stay sewn shut?

I won’t.

With that, I am no longer hopeless. 

That is all.