⎯⎯ ୨ The Hard Truth Is ୧ ⎯⎯ ─ a poem ─ to anchor hope, to press it into your chest even when your horizon is flat as a salt pan and everything you built your life upon evaporates like battery acid on asphalt, your teeth tasting the rubbery decay of it. When exhaustion sits with you, its dry desert drought mummifying the air, a hard-baked clay more fit for bricks than breathing; when surrender pins you down like a lead apron at the dentist, an iron weight of gravity, you think, How can a ribcage hold this? Then you grip strength like an unquenched coal between your palms, a jagged coal, no smooth marble, no cool relief, and you say, yes, I will burn with you I will strike a spark, again. *. * · - author's note - *. * · After "The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass Hope isn't always a soft light or a bird perched in our soul. . . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋ poetry: @Q1nix ࿐ྂ ⇢ ˗ˏˋ thank you for reading