blossoming tatters

When hope rises, it illuminates the future, a space that just moments ago was the darkest of alleyways.

She comes each day to the foot of this alleyway, one street lamp above her, shining down on her blossoming tatters. She knows what she looks like, standing there. She sees it every day in the mirror. Every window she passes. In bathrooms at parties, fixing her hair, this is what she sees.

She is standing at the foot of this dark alleyway. It is the future, but she cannot see into it, and though she tries she cannot yet trust the darkness. She fears it is empty, and she hesitates to walk.

She stands rigid below the street lamp, pale in its narrow fluorescent light. What the lamp shines on, this is what she knows. She can be sure of that. The blossoming tatters. The hope of hope.

She can be sure also of her grip. She has a good grip. She can hold on. She can weather a storm. She can walk in bright light. She can walk in darkness too. Everywhere but down this alleyway, where she stands and stares as if at any moment something may emerge from those deep shadows. Her anticipation stares too from under the lamp, watching for what might come out to meet her, instead of her going in to find it.

No, nothing will come. She must go.

(Parts of her have already gone, she knows. But the alleyway needs all of her. It needs what is standing under the street lamp.)

While she drives to work, she is standing at the foot of the alleyway. While she showers, she is standing at the foot of the alleyway. When her eyes flicker, they are focusing on the alleyway. When she turns her lips away, they are turning towards the alleyway.

And then sometimes, out of her depths, hope will rise. And when it does, the alleyway is illuminated. And then she can see that there is life ahead of her. Then she can see there is a lot of life.

And then more alleyways. And then more life.

And in these illuminated moments, which sometimes last for days, and will soon become weeks and months, she seems to forget about the bright, sharp street lamp above her. In these moments it is not only her and her fears that are illuminated in this darkness. It is all things and all people. It is everyone's hopes achieved and hopes dashed. It is all the dreaming and all the grasping.

It is a million-million dark alleyways, flickering madly as hope rises and sets in human hearts all over the world, like so many fireflies in the fearful night.

It is the human condition, of which she is a part.

And in its light, her tatters blossom a little more.