Where Hope Comes From Read online

  But she is small, and dedicated,

  and she has Hope and Courage and Love by her side.

  So she gets up and pays for her drinks

  and promises Hate’s retreating back,

  I will fix the world no matter how loud you are.

  I will try and try and try.

  More Notes on Survival

  Someone is talking to me

  about the light at the end of the tunnel

  and all I can think of is after.

  What happens after we meet the light.

  After the grief ends.

  After we walk into happiness.

  Won’t there be another tunnel,

  another painful passage,

  another trauma simply waiting?

  And the answer is, yes,

  because in the book of being,

  life promised to be a moving thing.

  It promised to be both fight and flourish.

  It vowed to be both lesson and respite.

  So the love will end.

  The light will end.

  The joy will end.

  And as we keep walking,

  we find it again.

  Affirmations for Strength

  There is nothing ugly about you.

  Mistakes are a human rite of passage.

  We all make them.

  You put the forgiveness inside your chest.

  Look for it in the first chamber of your heart.

  It lives there for you, too. Do not forget that.

  Other people cannot love the pain out of you.

  The bright side is, you can learn

  how to honor the pain so that you can welcome love in.

  A clenched fist does not always have the answers.

  Feel the breeze against your palm once in a while and allow the fight to be tomorrow’s problem.

  The world may seem like an ugly place right now,

  but there is so much you do not know of it yet,

  and a lot of what you do not know is exquisite.

  Prayer in Lockdown

  Some mornings, the weight of your sadnesses will be too heavy for you to get out of bed. Some afternoons will be spent in the arms of sorrow instead of tenacity. Some midnights you will remember every mistake you ever made, try to hold yourself together, and fail. This is shattering. This is coming undone in the most brutal ways possible. You are suddenly a void. You feel like an empty planet battling your own core. A war is still a war even if it is inside your head, did you know this? A wound left unhealed is bound to open again. That’s just what being human is. Fearless has always grown best in unknowing hands. That is what fearless is. Not knowing what is going to happen next and facing it anyway. Reminding yourself at the end that you are worth saving. When the pieces of you spill out of your hands, picking them up once again. And perhaps today is not the day that you face the harrowing. Perhaps today you just sit there, on the floor, counting the broken pieces of yourself.

  This is still prayer.

  You are still sacred.

  Some days, this is what holy will look like.

  How you resurrect yourself again.

  Progress

  The bad news is,

  what was shattered

  may never be possible to rebuild.

  The good news is,

  what you make in its place

  will be better than what was destroyed.

  The Recipe

  It is never too late to find passion for your purpose again.

  All you have to do is pluck your worst fears out and put them into a cauldron, sprinkle in some crimson love to sweeten, pick fresh green sprigs of determination from the plant you so lovingly grew in the garden of your heart.

  Mix it all up and then take a generous tablespoon of golden forgiveness, and this part is important: allow it to boil, then simmer.

  We aren’t making just any recipe. We are reigniting your passion for living, and that is an arduous task. So, be brave and patient. When it is ready, you will know.

  You will also know to pluck some leaves of wild hope growing by your kitchen window, mix it into the golden green swirls that look like a delicious story waiting to be told.

  You don’t need to drink this all at once.

  Instead, drain it into a jar and keep it in your fridge.

  Pour yourself a cup when the world tries to take from you what you love most.

  Drink it when they tell you that you have no fire, when you feel your existence was a mistake.

  Drink it and tell yourself the fire is there, it just needs a spark. That you have every right to be here, holding this difficult life carefully in your hands and turning living into a fine art.

  How to Be Happy Again

  The wretchedness will come like a raven wishing to be fed.

  Do not reject it.

  The sorrow will coil up like a poem your fingers refuse to write.

  Do not turn this anguish away.

  The fears will talk over each other while caught in your throat.

  Slowly untangle them and let them sit with you anyway.

  Despite what they tell you,

  it’s okay.

  It’s okay to feel small and alone sometimes.

  It’s okay to feel like a lonely cottage in the clouds,

  like you are all alone in your great big feelings,

  all these painful things that break you.

  Brave faces are just that,

  faces trying to look brave.

  Toxic positivity is just that.

  Positivity trying so hard it’s turning into poison.

  Healing is just a mess demanding to be felt.

  Especially the things we wish we didn’t have to feel.

  So feed the wretchedness.

  Feel the anguish and write the poem.

  Invite the fears to explain themselves till they are tired.

  And when everything has been fed and felt and has exhausted itself,

  give yourself the permission,

  the space, to be happy,

  even if the happiness

  has not found its way back to you yet.

  Hymn for the Future

  May you always know pain

  as temporary and laughter better.

  May the universe bless you

  with the perseverance to try harder.

  May you build a kinder history

  than the ruins that you were given.

  May the greatest gift you receive be more

  than just a life, but a life where the air is safer,

  a life so full of love and joy

  that it is worth living.

  And Even Through This

  Someone fell in love today.

  Someone was born today.

  Someone lived through something

  that could have killed them.

  Someone won back the love of their life.

  Someone made their parents proud.

  Someone survived.

  Someone healed.

  Someone let go.

  Seven billion people,

  and some have just had the best day

  of their lives.

  Today may have been

  the very worst day of yours.

  But take solace

  and celebrate this simple fact.

  It wasn’t your best day today,

  but it is on its way,

  because we all get lucky in turn.

  Silver Linings

  When uncertainty sends your spirit declining,

  and anxiety becomes as familiar as your own name,

  pause, breathe, let me show you some silver linings.

  They say that the swans have returned to Venice

  and the waters have become clear again.

  They say you can finally see blue skies in cities again.

  Who knew that social isolation could bring people closer?

  We see Italians sing and dance together on their balconies,

  people finally calling
up to check on their neighbors.

  And may we never take meeting each other

  for granted ever again, and may we realize

  compassion is all that makes this life worth living.

  So especially when it feels like the end now,

  we must remember that an ending is the start

  of another beautiful something,

  that there is always light to be had at the end of grieving.

  Nebula (Rebirth)

  noun

  • ASTRONOMY

  A cloud of dust particles, hydrogen, helium, and other vapors in the cosmos, sometimes visible as a bright patch.

  • INFORMAL

  A place where stars are born.

  Catching the Light

  It’ll hide from you.

  Secrete itself away

  inside experiences and people.

  You’ll find it in unusual places,

  like a small child’s song

  and a grandmother’s smile.

  Kindness always brings it out.

  As does the courage to do the right thing,

  despite the cruelty trying to tear you apart.

  It’ll glow through the darkest days,

  and that’s how you catch it

  inside the pocket of your heart.

  The Oak

  In the poetry of existence,

  the oak tree stands tall,

  despite the winds that try

  to knock it down.

  The grass grows again,

  even if it is cut every two weeks.

  The stars shine, defying

  their own deaths across time.

  The birds migrate across a sky

  that promises heavy storms.

  And the leaves shed at autumn

  and sprout again at spring.

  All of this says,

  if brave was easy,

  it would not belong

  in this family.

  It is in our DNA, our bones.

  We all have it in us to be heroes.

  Daily Mantra 5

  There is no better time

  to learn how to love yourself

  than the mirror that silence gives you.

  This is the time to reflect on all those things

  about yourself that no one has ever

  taught you how to love.

  The Forest

  One day, when you wake up,

  you will find that you’ve become a forest.

  You’ve grown roots and found strength in them

  that no one thought you had.

  You have become stronger

  and full of life-giving qualities.

  You have learned to take all the negativity around you

  and turn it into oxygen for easy breathing.

  A host of wild creatures live inside you

  and you call them stories.

  A variety of beautiful birds nest inside your mind

  and you call them memories.

  You have become an incredible

  self-sustaining thing of epic proportions.

  And you should be so proud of yourself,

  of how far you have come from the seeds of who you used to be.

  What They Do Not Tell You About Miracles

  Is how they come from complete chaos.

  How everything around us must fall apart

  before we can make something better.

  How the veil of comfort must be ripped

  from our faces for us to be able to truly grow.

  This is what the stars, the sun, and the moon already know.

  Here are the parts of what makes a successful miracle.

  Let healing arrive where there is agony.

  Let beauty rise where there is tragedy.

  Let joy fill up spaces and defeat violence.

  Let it be followed by benevolence.

  May everything good thrive despite this ruthlessness.

  Your Soft Heart

  You are still the child who gently places

  Fallen baby birds back in their nests.

  You are still the soft soul that gets

  Your heart broken over cruel words

  And awful acts when you watch the news.

  You are still the gentle heart who once

  Tried to heal a flower by attempting to stick

  Its petals back on when ignorant feet trampled it.

  This is why you are important.

  This is why you will always be needed.

  Kindness is the greatest endangered thing.

  And here you are, existing, your heart so full with it.

  Kindness

  And maybe it is easier to learn kindness in these times.

  When the whole world is like a small child with a fever,

  trying her very best to make herself feel better.

  Maybe we find our unity in the near losing of everything.

  Where we have no choice but to depend upon each other—key workers, volunteers, and neighbors.

  This is what it takes to realize we are in this together.

  A man helps someone he dislikes because they are in danger.

  A neighbor delivers groceries to everyone ill on her street.

  Old friends forgive each other and stop acting like they are strangers.

  Maybe this time, this is when the revolution arrives dressed as kindness.

  People helping each other despite their differences.

  Understanding, truly, that without the aid of others

  we would be all alone in this.

  Love in the Time of Coronavirus

  (For Trista Mateer)

  Today, we stockpile empathy.

  We supply love and good energy.

  We sing to each other across buildings.

  We say I love you through social distancing.

  Do you know that writing letters

  to our friends is back in fashion?

  And that we finally have time to read more books,

  whether historical or fiction?

  My cousin told me she hadn’t seen

  such a blue sky in her city before.

  My uncle went on his first walk in the woods.

  He heard a bird sing for the first time since he went to war.

  Even in sickness, this world

  is allowed to be beautiful.

  And we are still allowed to love it,

  for there is always room for hope.

  This is just me checking in,

  sending you the moon as a poem,

  praying and wishing for us all

  a speedy recovery.

  And if nothing else,

  there will always be poetry.

  We will always have poetry.

  Cities, Ruins, and You

  New York City was partly built from the wartime ruins

  of English cathedrals, and libraries, and homes.

  Rome was created again from what was left of it

  after it had burned to nothing but ashes.

  New Delhi is still standing, a gorgeous amalgamation

  of old and new history after thousands of years of war.

  And these are simply

  cities.

  So what makes you believe that you,

  with the healing force

  of the whole universe behind you,

  cannot rebuild your heart,

  cannot rise like a phoenix from the ashes

  that were left of you?

  How can you possibly believe

  that these ruins are the end of you?

  93 Percent Stardust

  (After Carl Sagan, who gave me hope as a child)

  We have calcium in our bones,

  iron in our veins,

  carbon in our souls,

  and nitrogen in our brains.

  93 percent stardust,

  with souls made of flames,

  we are all just stars

  that have people names.

  Daily Mantra 6

  Beauty exists
alongside the ugliness.

  The dark side of the moon doesn’t destroy its shine.

  The stars are both common and rare.

  The world is not an either, an or, but both,

  And every quiet, bright shade in between.