So often, we hear that hope is the thing with feathers,
The quiet nightingale that sings us to salvation — light and light.
But so often, the hope that lives within us is neither a sweet nor timid bird.
It is a vicious thing with claws and teeth, thrashing in its enclosure,
Pulling its leg from the trap, existing despite it all.

Hope is a thing that lingers, a thing that fights.
A thing that cannot be eviscerated by fire, by tears, by knife.
It grows like an olive tree on broken land and mends itself like bone.

It bleeds like a wound, festers like a wound,
A scar that marred the skin, a phantom pain pulsing in sinew and flesh.
So often, hope is a dog that bites the hand of terror,
A weapon that slashes at the face of grief.

Hope’s song is neither a wind chime nor a solemn melody,
But an echoing war cry ringing from within the soul.

-Aryanna Mikaela C. Bengan

(Illustration by Elysse Nicolle Duller/FEU Advocate)