Hope by Hazel Hoffman, ill. Jenna Porter

Hope

Hazel Hoffman

Mending Fences

Picasso thought that colors ebbed and rose with the changes of emotion. Kandinsky believed that the sounds of colors were definite, so that a lake may never be depicted in treble, and a yellow never sounded through bass notes.

Hope is blue. Almost electric. Electric hope. Hope bleeds in from the sky. It follows the sunrise. It lives in the stars. It dances in the oceans. When hope fades, the whole world goes grey.

The moon is hiding tonight, so the stars are out in force. Hundreds of them, fitted together like some multidimensional map. The grass is cold and sharp against my skin, but it relents and lets me rest in its embrace. It pops out in front of my vision as if I’m only a few inches tall, which I suppose I am. The ground is uneven and pitted, but somehow it feels more comfortable than any bed. When I was little, my best friend and I came out here to look at the stars all the time. We thought they were bursting with blue flame. I’ll never forget his voice when he found that star. We were both breathless in the presence of such powerful hope.

The world is different now. Some nights I wish I could sink through the earth and into the dirt and rock beneath. That I could sink so far that I forget everything that caused me pain and relax into the core of the earth. To find peace, finally.

But not tonight. Tonight I just want to stare up at the stars and cry. Everything is so pointed here on earth. Every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. Everything has it’s point, but if all it does is cause the opposite, is there a point? We convince ourselves that there is. It doesn’t matter in space. The universe is a vast expanse of space. Space to scream into where no one can hear you and you don’t need anyone to. Space to vault into and to thrive within. Space full of silent explosions and sparkling constellations and the heartbeats of stars.

Space full of stars bursting with blue flame. Space powdered with blue hope. Hope that fills my heart at night even when the dark creeps in.

Kandinsky, hope sounds like the rising notes before a celestial ballad. It sounds like the voice that is strong even though it’s broken. It sounds like the rising tide and the sunrise. Tell me what note that is. Picasso was wrong - colors don’t follow emotions; they create them.

36

torches n’ pitchforks

37