.
“All hope abandon ye who enter here”
is carved above the Gateway to Hell,
but surely is also the last doorway
to walk through to find Liberation.
Hope balances Despair on the emotional seesaw.
Both project the known past into the unknowable future.
.
Hope dangles future rewards for current forbearance,
tethering one to the timeline and
chaining one within the walls of the personal,
masking the always-open doorway to Freedom,
with whispered sweet promises of better times to come.
.
Harsh though it seems,
the disguise of Hope must be seen through
to bask in the immediacy and infinity
of the eternal perfection
that is birthing this present Now.