Rebecca Olayinka
‘Hope’
Sorrow fills your heart like the rushing of a mighty wind on a cold autumn’s day.
The self-assurance and confidence you had of yourself are now gone,
And you have only God to rely on for your support.
You find it hard to believe,
So trusting him is even harder
You put on a brave face, but inside you are crying and the tears are like that of a new born baby;
Salty and sweet a bit like rain or sleet.
The very notion of being unseen and unheard appeals to you.
Somehow, sometime in the night when you cannot sleep or eat,
You wonder how on earth are you supposed to run this wretched race?
If your worst enemy is you and there is no voice, no whisper, no answer in the night.
Yet you preserve, even though ending it all seems like such a brilliant idea.
You begin to understand what has brought you here and what you must do to succeed.
Even though you don’t like it and it would be easier to be invisible,
You decide, you make a choice, like you have been doing all your life.
But there is something different, something you cannot quite put your finger on,
There is a feeling that…
There is a sense of hope.
I wrote "Hope" years ago, when I was in my mid-late teens. I was going through a really difficult time and I just wanted to give up on life and the words just flowed out of me.
The poem's roots are linked to experiencing depression and how it can become an overwhelming force, so much so that it feels like there is no reassurance that there is any light at the end of the tunnel. At certain points, it all gets too much and you cannot take it anymore.
The thoughts are all in your mind about how you can deal with the situation in front of you. It feels like you are fighting against yourself and you end up fighting a losing battle.
The poem also leads me to think of the myth/story of Pandora's box. Pandora opened the box and set out all the evils on the world, but there was something at the bottom also, to counteract the contents, and this was "Hope". I feel that at the end of the day, no matter what evils or negative emotions you are experiencing, if you keep on going one day at a time, a feeling of hope will soon arise.
Written by Rebecca Olayinka
Rebecca is from London and has lived in Bristol for 14 years. Rebecca attended UWE and now works as Senior Practitioner (Social Worker) in Bristol. Rebecca loves poetry and is currently working on her first manuscript.