To the ones with hope (or those who think they are without)

To @DrSemicolon; @ChrisSadhill; @Raynstar; @dianetex; @H1; @Klemaster1964; @Switch_Hazel; @CindyCalder; @EldonRiver; @AnnaFan14; @OfficeAndSand; @Plexiglassfruit; @r_raven; @Spacetimer; @aflalo22; @7v7; @AJJ; @brkbillst42; @Lees345; @SharondaBriggs

Congratulations to DrSemicolon on winning. Thank you all for contributing your special and unique take on this topic. It is sure is an elusive one.

Here is my modest tribute to you, and may all those who thrive on little hope, get filled with more of it. Certainly, your writing inspires and gives many others hope.

My modest piece

The tank runs empty

There’s a station up the road: hope.

There’s a despondent thought: it will never work

Then the baby smiles for no reason: hope.

Effort was put all out and nothing happened

Then the nine-year-old put his hand on your arm soothing: hope.

Fresh out of roses in the garden of love

Then a familiar face forgotten in the fields meets you with fired up eyes: hope.

One day the powers that be sold you out, you’re not the in-crowd

Then on another plane, others meet and greet you, respect and renown you: hope.

The author’s famed book when it was thrown in the dumpster; the movie no one saw but everyone did late at night and was sold without a sell; the artist who died with the last brush in a painting; the people who thrived even one overpowered them all without defeating him.

It maybe a vacuum and a void, a long tunnel with light afar, a spring in the air without a net, a lighthouse isolated on the shore, an expectation of the unexpected

But, at every turn, whoever you are, wherever you are, it lingers at the tip of fingers, and has taste on the tip of lips. It whispers only to you.

You may not call it hope then but when reality is what you want, you may recall it was always there.