I get tired of hope;
Smile: clenching my lips split,
Chapped cynicism drips.
A lemon squeezed — face screws against reality,
Obdurate, turning bitter.
Rice jar of positive intention molders sooner than the next.

Do you have enough energy to make hope real?
My back broke heaving the thick clay out of the river to keep my flow,
But on the bank it runs back down in the rain.

"But what shall I do?"
Pleading, I ask the deaf beyond.
And you may ask, "To which "beyond" I address?"
This one, with few eyes — a vestige of a once fervent platform.
The nothing that is my own silent speaking.

And with these thoughts in the dusty corner of forget, I hope to forge something that may endure beyond my waste. A straggly sentence without the pretense of enjambment and too forward for polite company; an aside screaming my intent — too "on the nose" and badly written.