Dull Aches

You'd expect the ache to die out after a while. Expect the spark to finally bluster out in a cold afternoon, expect to watch the coals slowly turn inwards on themselves and leave only the decimation of ash behind. The ache doesn't die, it festers. Aches and desires go together like a balloon in a child's hand, a helium filled piece of stretched rubber that tugs incessantly at the heart until it finally manages to wrest itself from its captive's hand and rise meteorically to the atmosphere and beyond. Ache and desire, the juxtaposition of pain and elation, of fulfillment and doubt. Desire is such a wonton thing, really, grasping at straws and digging deeply for hope in the same breath. 

"How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand that there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold." *

 Some hopes that go to deep, that have taken hold. That have latched onto the deepest parts of the soul, that have invaded the walls of our innermost being, that have decimated any logic, that have thrown thought out the window, thrown questioning into the pit of who-cares. Hope is a more dangerous thing than despair, it aches, it supplants any reasoning, supplants the words of your closely guarded circle, challenges the odds and consumes rhetoric. Hope is wily. Hope laughs in the face of opposition, makes a mockery of the fool who dares to challenge its lofty being.

"You have suffered enough and warred with yourself, it's time that you've won. Take this sinking boat and point it home, we've still got time. Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice, you've made it now. Falling slowly, sing your melody, I'll sing it loud. I paid the cost too late, now you're gone."**

Exult in hope. Exult in the lack of control hope brings, exult in the fallout, in the outcome. Exult in the uncanniness of it all, exult in hope's mockery of all things false, in hope's dull ache. Drown in the elation of this ache, though it burns your heart to a cinder and brings you to the edge of the precipice each time, drown. If there is one magical quality confined to the dull earth and rock of this planet hurtling towards its eventual demise, it's hope. Hope is ache. Hope is desire. Hope is destructive. Hope is regenerative. Hope is.

M

*Frodo Baggins, The Return of the King

**Glen Hansard, Falling Slowly